Peter,

>When I use a 2.6 table in VFP, it stays a 2.6 table as long as I don't change the structure of the table in any way that 2.6 doesn't understand, e.g. null values, integer fields, etc. Memo fields must be the old 10 byte kind.

Anytime you do a MODI STRU on a 2.6 table in VFP6 it'll alter the header adding the dbc backlink space which will break the table as far as 2.6 is concerned. You must do table maintenance in 2.6. In VFP you can freely read/write the table as much as your want with or without views. You can even build indexes from VFP without causing problems (assuming you don't try to use a VFP only function)