>>>I have not read the whole of this thread, but whoever suggested use of DOEVENTS has given you a red herring! DOEVENTS processes events that are pending for your VFP app. If no events are pending then DOEVENTS has nothing to do, and will complete relatively quickly. In fact the term DOEVENTS is actually a misnomer since the events being processed are queued!
>
>Try the following : copied from a Word macro.

With Options
>   .AllowFastSave = False
>   .BackgroundSave = False

>
>>
>>Well, it so happens that the red herring was prepared for me by a rather heralded expert on the subject...
Thanks Houston!