a simple solution to pathing is to always put the data below the .prg or .exe, so it works in both design & production versions, and do NOT use a path, they tend to be slippery and put you in the weeds!

eg program in /anywhere
first level tables ( logins, company lists, etc ) in /anywhere/data
real tables ( customers, employees, etc ) in anywhere/data/company_data

so you set default to current directory ( anywhere ) to avoid refering to foxpro files, and load data/*.dbf to get started! Then if you need the company selector, the location is obvious, and you can now either set default to anywhere/data/company_data or use a routine to open the proper file and always refer to it by the same alias()