>>This would be true if any portion was on the network. What he told me was that he had everything on the local machine with nothing on the network. Totally local. I forget what version he said (I believe vfp 6) but I remember SEVERE problems with FPW 2.6 under NT (only as the workstation not as the server) having to do with files becoming unreadable (just for a moment though). I do recall seeing more problems with stuff that does a lot of intensive reading an writing under NT (the workstation) than under 98 or 95. Fortunately 2000 does not seem to have that problem. There is also the problem of the timer resolution under NT (and 2000) being lower, which can cause problem with temp filename routines.
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>Yes, vfp6 SP3, and your description of the test situation (all local) is on target. Another isolation on this:
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>I have reformatted & loaded a default MS/Dell NT4.4 OS version I have onto yet another new & fast (256 RAM) local machine (no net here either), and I cannot reproduce the SEEK OFFSET problem under either FAT or NTFS partitions with this NT configuration. There is NOTHING else on that machine besides NT, IE, MSDN, VS, my app, and a test DB, but it IS completely clean of the problem, after much stress-testing. I'm impressed, at this point.
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>Thus, it is our gov't IT standard NT config that is the problem, I would guess, not inherently NT. It's not network-related - nor any hardware problem, as this machine is identical in every way (Dell P3/733s) to the ones where I find the problem.
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>I think this can be resolved now, with the help of someone with very good NT expertise, finding one is my next step...

I would guess that there are some standard things they have on them? I would suggesting adding those items, one at a time until the problem rears its head. What you just added is the culprit. Then try removing it and see if the problem goes away again. If so, then determine if that item is really needed, and start a search for either a replacement, or work with the vendor to fix the problem it is causing.