Craig,

It is perfectly evident to me that you are perfectly satisfied with the way MS runs all aspects of its business. While I too am generally satisfied, some things, like all take and no give (which is my way of saying take any communication *IN* but never communicate outward, except by press release), bother me a lot.

They certainly have the staff and the bucks to do differently, but they do not!

to be sure MVPs are EXTREMELY helpful, yourself included! But here, again, an MVP only has *experience* to *REALLY* go on, and certainly *NOT* in-depth ACTUAL knowledge of the DESIGN OBJECTIVES of the various aspects of VFP.
I can make some pretty good *guesses* of design objectives too, but my experience has shown me that such can be extremely dangerous, so it is better to keep ones mouth shut and to clearly state when one is guessing. With VFP, that's most of the time.

As long as we all keep demonstrating to MS that we find their ways more than acceptable, they will continue to do them the same way. Why shouldn't they?

I say there are better ways for them to do a few of the *IMPORTANT* things. The docs and the KnowledgeBase are two of those things.

Wouldn't it be funny *IF* better docs resulted in fewer BUGS in later releases, cause the designers/codes would *KNOW* what was expected and could protect it???

Cheers,
Jim N

>>>The KnowledgeBase *can* be helpful, but frankly, how many "examples" have
>>>you tried that worked EXACTLY AS PRINTED? In my case, NONE! always some
>>>little buglet/mistype somewhere! How many "HOW to. . .s" are actually
>>>real-world How-to's?? They really are "one way to. . ." and generally only
>>>apply in the theoretical, not practical, case. Finally, how many articles
>>>end with "working as designed"??? Why do I learn this in a KB article -
>>>isn't the Help *THE* place for such stuff???
>>
>>Microsoft has confirmed this to be a problem in the products named
>>above.
>
>
>The "theoretical" aspect of How to's is exactly why Microsoft started the MVP program
>and has newsgroups. The MVP program rewards the product users for helping others on the
>newsgroups and here on the UT.