>Try breaking the statement into multiple joins. VFP will never join more than two tables at once. At best, the join first two tables will be fully optimized, then partial or no optimization after that. I've also found that quite often when you start joining lots of tables that one or more of the join conditions isn't right and you end up with a Cartesian product, which really uses up disk space.

Cartesian: Hmmm...

The system of Cartesian coordinates is the most commonly used coordinate system. In two dimensions, this system consists of a pair of lines on a flat surface, or plane, that intersect at right angles. Each of the lines is called an axis and the point at which they intersect is called the origin. The axes are usually drawn horizontally and vertically and are usually referred to as the x and y axes, respectively. In Cartesian coordinates, a point on the plane whose coordinates are (2,3) is 2 units to the right of the y axis and 3 units up from the x axis, as shown in Figure 1. In three-dimensional Cartesian coordinates, the z axis is added so that there are three axes all perpendicular to each other.

Intersting way to describe a runaway group by join. :) Many times I've said to myself, WOW, 3 billion records!!!