>I now responsible for an existing multi-user VFP application (currently VFP 5, willing to use newer versions). Tables are on a server (Novel).
>It opens all the tables when the application starts (a hold over from original FPW opplication), it uses private data sessions for data entry forms. Recent a user crashed and I think this currupted a few tables but adding an empty record which caused the part of creates the keys to restart at 1 and thus create duplicate records. I was able to fix this by deleting bad records, but this may have caused some counts in other tables to be bad.
>
>I do not want to be in the table repair bussiness and thus would like to avoid situations like this. Any suggestions appreciated.
>
>One thought I had to minimize potentail bad records is NOT open the tables when application starts but only when data is being added or updated. Is this a viable approach?
>
>What is the overhead?
>How do I code this efficiently?
>
>FWIW it uses SDT.

You are really trying to do fix something with code that you have no control over... you might want to instead investigate eliminating the 'crashes' by installing battery backup systems. I am sure there is no one here that wants to be in the 'table repair business', but that is part of the job - computers crash, servers crash, users turn off computers without shutting down, etc.