Steve,

>I really like your idea...

COM can be useful once in a while! *wink*

>Perhaps (like you say) you can't do this with the runtime. If that is true, it won't work unless VFP is actually installed on his target machine.

True...does make it harder to deploy...

>I have another thought (untested, of course). What if there was a second DBC, with a stored procedure in it? Would that stored procedure be able to open another DBC and pack it? Perhaps it could do the process manually (opening the DBC as a table, and packing it).

I don't see why that wouldn't work...as long as the database doing the PACK knows where to find the second DBC, all should go fine... I tohught someone already brought up this idea, though, no? I can't remember all that has been suggested...

JoeK