Thanks Peter. There are others contributing to this thread too. I'll keep you posted.

- Ravi


>>I have not gone into Oracle as yet. But if I understand you correctly, you use VFP free tables whevever you use VFP - right?
>
>Not completely;
>What I tried to imply is that using a DBC for your free tables, would make you more or less dependent from the DBC's features, and the possible later step to Oracle (etc.) could be more difficult.
>But yes, at this moment we use free native VFP tables. IOW, we don't have this remote DBMS in production yet, but right now we are converting the app to be DB-independent.
>
>So : a native VFP table would be a table in a "database" (just a dir with dbf's) you could do Seek's upon, as long as you keep in mind that a native VFP table can just as well be in a remote database, connected via ODBC (OLE-DB ?), accessed via SQL commands.
>A "free table" remains on being a table not hung in a DBC, as long as you look at it as a non-remote table (IMO this is the proper definition).
>
>
>
>>If so, would this pose a problem when trying to put a project together and creating a single executable that can be distributed? Also, how would VFP 7's Installshield deal with free tables?
>
>I won't be able to answer upon this at all, because it wouldn't be my way of working at all. Now coincidentally we have this thread hanging around : Thread #599312 but note there are many lines in there.
>
>>
>>I hope more people shed their thoughts on this issue.
>>
>>- Ravi
>
>Yep.
>Peter