The issue of MDAC and VFP's OLE DB inclusion seems to be more one of end user perception than a problem for developers. As honest developers supporting Micrsoft's great new VFP product efforts , we all purchase VFP 7.o and can install using Wise, Install Master,etc.

The problem occurs when an IS manager or director asks if we need to install any special "drivers" for our application. Oopss! Time to get pushed back into the "is VFP special, MS supported, continuing argument" that occurs when something needs to be added to the client system that is not perceived as part of a general MDAC upgrade package.

I agree with you that discovery is key to the negotiation with the end user but the lack of inclusion in MDAC of the OLE DB weakens the hand of VFP. I assume this issue is only true when using VFP databases. Using MSDE databases designed in SQL resolves this issue for the 1 to 5 concurrent user systems. Anything above this requires the full SQL.