Hi!

>That could work I guess, but as you say pity it is so messy.

I spend 4 days to figure out the approach for SPT... ;(( However, don't worry much, 10MB ZIP file stored/retrieved by such way works very well compare to my worse expectations.

>I also considered storing the scans on the WAN somewhere and just storing links to them in SQL Server. However a lot the scanned mail will be confidential. Perhaps I could get our network guys to set up a secure area on the WAN and get VFP to look in that area for them. I would have to embed a paasword into the app.
>
>If I did this would my user then be able to gain access to all the scans from Explorer or something. This of course would not be desirable.
>

If you can access from application to file server -> you can do this from explorer. Embedding password into application is even more risky, anyone that gets this password will get access to file server, and it is not so hard to get it from VFP application.

Above are the same resons why we tried to store documents on the SQL server in image field - just for better security and private documents for each user.


>
>>
>>The best way to store binary data on SQL Server is to use image field on SQL Server. You're asking right question about general field - it is quite messy to handle it. There are workaround to use Memo field in VFP to store binary data and than map it to image field on SQL server. See following
>>FAQ#7995713 in Frequently Asked Questions section -> Client/server -> "How to work with Image field type on SQL Server?"
>>
>>
>>>We are hoping to scan all incoming post using a VFP Frontend.
>>>
>>>We want the results of these scans to be stored in a SQL Server backend and accessed over our WAN (Kilostream so pretty slow)
>>>
>>>1. Does SQL Server support the General Fields neccesary to store our scans.
>>>
>>>2. Is our WAN too slow.
>>>
>>>3. Is this a good idea or is their a better way we dont know about.
>>>
>>>Many Thanks