>Great - I've got to share my dirty little secret with the world.
>I'm new to VFP and my only app is converting my FPD app to visual. The learning curve is steep when you don't do this for a living.
>I'm filling arrays with fields from tables and using them in combos. The only way I can get it to work is (do I have to admit this) to initialize them in the load event as Public variables.
>I'm attending weekly meetings of Variables Anonymous but have a way to go.

You may try (as first remedy) to use form property-arrays for your combos.