>Knowledge base article Q225861
>
>or just
>
>http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q225/8/61.ASP
>
>Mr. Green should go yell at 'em.

My somewhat blind colleagues fail to see the significance of this. When purchasing or installing a new machine that does not have older installations of MDAC, or the developers environment, one finds the FoxPro drivers missing. It has become increasingly difficult to locate the dirvers for VFP at MS downloads. Of course if you are only upgrading, you are able to bring the the table the older versions, which do work in this instance. If one cannot easily obtain and include the ODBC drivers (and dammit, the dbase drivers are STILL included in MDAC) then the customer has perceived compatibility problems with applications developed with VFP.

This has been a gripe of mine for some time, as Microsoft positions Visual FoxPro as an independent application, as opposed to its working together with other Microsoft applications, (i.e VS, Office, etc.) it is leaving the perception that VFP is being moved to a niche market, and is being pulled from the mainstream, and removing traditional compatibility. I am aware of several very large licensees of VFP that are considering not renewing, and directing future development and training to be pointed toward VS .NET. And (to knock on wood) I have seen this coming for three years now (see my previous posts on the subject) and in spite of the pooh poohs I have had in reply to my own concerns for what I consider a great product, it is still happening and should not be ignored.

Us traditional VFP developers will likely remain in the fold, but I consider that somewhat self-limiting.