>Patrick,
>
>One thing I should have mentioned:
>
>This will all be done with PC's running Win98 or Win95.
>
>With the exception of the main office, all the satellite
>PC's will probably be in a home office environment, so there
>is no network, or connectivity by the remote PC's.
>
>Each PC, both main office and users, will be running a copy
>of the application.
>
>This would be the scenerio:
>
>I was thinking of having a flag on each record which
>indicates to the main office that the record is Added,
>Modified or is to be deleted from the main office database.
>
>A User collects data from various sources and keys it
>into the data entry screens. Each day, or each week, they
>activate the transmit function which dials or connects to
>the main office PC, and transmits the data. I was only
>going to transmit the records which have been added, modified
>or marked for removal.
>
>After transfer, the main office PC makes the appropriate
>changes to the data, record by record, according to the flags.
>
>Any thoughts?


yes, that is also what i did, and it is the way the synchronizers
work for the JET database engine, and for SQL Server sync. extract
your changes, transfer your list of changes, then implement your
changes on the "central" machine. that way, if you lose a connection
during transfer, you just detect it, and do your transfer again (or
if you wanna get fancy, pickup where you broke off). you would be
asking for trouble if you tried to do your table updates over the remote connection.

as a matter of fact, transferring to a mapped share on your "central"
computer prevents remote users from direct access to the database.
(even if you trust them, it's still a good idea). you can use the
copy file command & specify a unc convention file spec.

to build an RPC server, just create a project containing a custom olepublic
class. i've not run my RPC server on anything but NT, but am under the
impression that it will run on 98 or 95. it's DCOM object.

mine is named IT_RPC_SERVER:

DEFINE CLASS IT_RPC_SERVER AS CUSTOM OLEPUBLIC
[variable declarations]
[funtion declarations & implementations]
ENDDEFINE

when you compile this, one of the things that gets created is a VBR
file, which you need to copy to your remote machines and register.

then in your "synchronizer" program on the client, just instantiate
the object and call the methods (which can have parameters).