>I need to protect my dbf files in a networked environment. Is there an ActiveX component to attach a password to dbf files and allow the application to be able to open them only?
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Not really if you allow the user to access the file directly, anything that might open the file and bypass your control can get to them. You can't give a user 'selective permission' to access a file - if he can read and write to it, he can get there by just making sure that any control you fire up isn't there.

Your best approach would be to use an operating system that allows access to files to be controlled at the file level. This pretty much rules out Win9x, or anything running a FAT file system. NT or Win2K with NTFS< and netWare, both have the necessary granularity control of file access - different permissions for different users can be controlled at the file level (FAT, where access control is permitted, handles access control at the folder or share level.)

Another approach would be to write a DCOM component to do the work of accessing the file on another system, perhaps with a user id having different permissions than those associated with the current local user. Rather than directly manipulating a file, you access an out of process server running on a different machine and have it perform all access tasks for you. This pretty much rules out using traditional VFP file access in the application, but does give you flexibility to define any security model you like, up to and including never letting the user access the file directly - what you can't see, you can't open, delete or modify - in fact, the user might not be able to determine where or whether the file even exists.

Another solution would be to use a database backend product with a setronger security model than that used by VFP. Many backends will permit control at a number of level, even more granularly than the operating system - if you were to create remote views, you could access the data in much the same fashion as native files using local views, and take advantage of the backend's security model. As in the example above, the user, without tools to access the backend, and woithout permission outside of the database server, can't reach the file.

>Thanks in advance. Any suggestions is greatly appreciated ...