Finally getting back to this. This may be a dumb question but I wan to be sure I do right. Since application already used a public variable for the folder in which the tables reside can I use it in the forms data environment method?

>The follow is my solution
>
>design form normally, drag table/views to data environment
>then set property you want.
>
>Set the AutoOpenTable and AutoCloseTable of the dte to .f. .
>
>in the load event of the form, write your own code to
>enumerate cursors and its definition then construct codes
>to open them in your ways.
>
>the following is my code in load events
>*-----------------------------------------------------------
>PRIVATE o,oData,i,cOErr,lErr
>lErr=.f.
>cOErr=ON('error')
>oData=thisform.dataEnvironment
>FOR i=1 TO oData.objects.count
> o=EVALUATE('oData.Cursor'+ALLTRIM(STR(i,3)))
>
> ON ERROR lErr=.t.
> IF ! DBUSED(o.database)
> OPEN DATABASE (o.database) SHARED
> ENDIF
> SET DATABASE TO (o.database)
> ON ERROR &cOErr
> IF lErr
> RETURN .f.
> ENDIF
>
>
> DO CASE
> CASE o.bufferModeOverride=0
> nBuffer=1
> CASE o.bufferModeOverride=1
> nBuffer=thisform.BufferMode+1
> OTHERWISE
> nBuffer=o.bufferModeOverride
> ENDCASE
>
> TEXT TO cTmp noshow
> USE <> <>
> in 0 ALIAS <> <>
> <> <>
> connstring (gcConnectString)
> ENDTEXT
> ctmp=chrTRAN(ctmp,CHR(13)+CHR(10)+CHR(9),' ')
>
> ON ERROR lErr=.t.
> &cTmp
> ON ERROR &cOErr
> IF lErr
> RETURN .f.
> ENDIF
>
> ON ERROR lErr=.t.
> CURSORSETPROP("Buffering",nBuffer,o.Alias)
> ON ERROR &cOErr
> IF lErr
> RETURN .f.
> ENDIF
>
> ON ERROR lErr=.t.
> IF NOT EMPTY(o.filter)
> SET FILTER TO (o.filter) IN (o.alias)
> ENDIF
> ON ERROR &cOErr
> IF lErr
> RETURN .f.
> ENDIF
>NEXT
>*---------
>
>select (thisform.cMasterAlias)
>this.nConnectHandle=CursorGetProp('ConnectHandle')
>glSql(this.nConnectHandle,'set Lock_TimeOut 3000')
>glSql(this.nConnectHandle,'SET DATEFORMAT ymd')
>glSql(this.nConnectHandle,'SET ANSI_NULLS OFF')