>Let me put a further wrinkle on the problem. This is a little different than the original problem.If I write code such as:
>'Insert into mytable from memvar' on the assumption that mytable is an alias that is open when it actually is not open,(in other words, a table by that name does not actually exist) THEN the user is trapped in an open table dialog that can never open the right table. The only escape is ctrl+alt+delete many times. I did not mean to do this but in maniuplation about 150 tables in an update, it did happen and each time (after the conversion had run for several minutes) I had to go thru a lengthy process to recover. I wish I was better at writing code but sometimes the truth is not evident even when you are staring at it.

Calvin,

Did you try exiting the dialog by pressing its Cancel button? This should cause the VFP Error #: 1, File 'mytable.dbf' does not exist. Your error handler should then be able to cope with this programmatically. I don't see why you needed to resort to ctrl+alt+del.

Mike