>>I was thinking about doing some lengthy processes in the background. For this purpose, I might need to start a separate EXE (perhaps a second instance of the original EXE - or perhaps I will have to separate the lengthy processes into other files). The idea is that the user specifies some lengthy process in the main program (e.g., prepare a lengthy report), and the second EXE is started automatically.
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>Take a look at the Pool Manager sample that comes with VFP (SAMPLES\SERVERS\POOLMGR). The idea is that you call a VFP COM object that's based on a timer. Since it's a COM object, it runs in a separate instance of VFP. Basing the COM object on a timer means that it can return control immediately to the caller, which can carry on doing whatever it needs to. The timer in the COM object then fires and starts performing the required task in the background.
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>Doug

Hi, Doug,

I have only one comment to this thread - rather than set up timer-based COM objects and arcane API calls, wouldn't it be easier to just switch to Unix/Linux? One statement in most languages, and there you are - a forked child process.

David (realizing that VFP doesn't run in Linux...)