Rick,
Thanks VERY MUCH for these details (though it is not exactly what I WANTED to hear). I will try to access these things to see what I learn.

While it is good of you to "defend" MS on this issue, their current tack, at least for VFP, causes more problems than providing solutions! I could concievably have dived into creating an OLE Application Server using VFP, only to find out THE ONLY WAY POSSIBLE (from the info provided with VFP and in the more common "public" areas of MS) that the thing simply cannot handle any volume of Clients! I truly feel it is my background in mainframe performance issues which gave me the sense to ask some pointed questions before I got going. Somehow I think that the 'average' PC person might just have gotten suckered in. At the very least there ought to have been a statement regarding single execution (queued requests) and performance implications.

Anyways, I will keep plugging away, hoping to see more documentation in more places. Until things are more clear, though, it will remain just an idea in the back of my mind (and I find this sad, because it had so much potential).

Cheers, and thanks again
Jim N

>>I appreciate the suggestion to look at VB docs, but find VFP quite a handful right now. Odd that such info would be in VB docs, and not in some "generic" docs on OLE at the MS site.
>>I'm sure they understand why, and that I never will.
>
>VB was the first application dev environment to really embrace OLE and
>Automation. Now the move is on to move to leaner COM clients and changes
>are happening again. VFP is not really in the game here in the current
>incarnation as it's old style single threaded. That may change with VFP
>being targeted at the server crowd these days, in future releases.
>
>There's lots of info on threading models and load balancing but it's all
>geared at the 'systems professional' and 'enterprise developers'. If you
>really want to find out check out the SiteBuilder Network under the Active
>Server, ASP Components and COM Programming topics. There's lots of info,
>but it's confusing to wade through. It took me a number of pointed messages
>at several knowledgable individuals to retrieve the information I needed
>in a form that made sense.
>
>FWIW, I have posted an Advanced Web Development article on my Web site
>that discusses a number of these issues. A basic discussion of tools also
>discusses (ASP, FoxISAPI and Web Connection) how they scale. You can
>find both of these at http://www.west-wind.com/articles.htm - they're
>both specific to VFP Web development.
>
>It's new technology and it takes a while to trickle down and be appropriately
>communicated by third parties. MS is not doing a good job documenting
>what they put out - there's simply to much of it. It takes third parties
>to put into the appropriate context for perspective.
>A lot of folks are hitting the wall with Web apps because of the
>potential overload and not stress testing up front!!!
>
>>PS The fact that VFP as an OLE Automation Server is SINGLE-THREAD should at the very least be mentioned in the VFP docs on the topic.
>
>Fact is MS is not advertising threading issues much because it's too technical. MS is selling on ease of use and scalability and threading
>models don't fit that model well, except when target at the high end
>developer crowd of C++ programmers and 'enterprise develpoers'.
>
>FWIW, VB5 is also single threaded. However due to an adjustment in the way their main threads are handled VB servers can run simultaneous instances at the same time by using Apartment threading (the thread that started the server is always guaranteed to call the same server - so multiple threads can start separate servers) VFP is likely to catch with this trend, but even so load issues are much
>more critical than simply making the environment multi-threaded. Load
>balancing becomes a real issue when you can't run on a single server alone!
>
>The current state of affairs for VFP by using pool managers actually provides
>the same funcionality through intermediate software that other tools provide
>natively. In my tests the Web Connection and FoxISAPI pool managers both
>outperform the VB automatic threading which is generic!
>
>The key is to look closely before you leap. Load balancing with Active
>Server is a real bear - contrary to what MS has to say. One look at the
>support forums will tell you as much...
>
>Regards,
>
>+++ Rick ---