Hi Bill,

>Someone else pointed out that ForeGround buffer and BackGround buffer size come into play when I switch between applications. So I equalized ForeGround and BackGround buffers by reducing the size of ForeGround and increasing size of BackGround. This GREATLY increased the time that the query took to finish (but it ran at the same time in ForeGround and BackGround).

The background/foreground buffer affects the speed of the query when you run it a second time, not when you run it the first time. The real time that this query takes is what it needs the first time you execute it. However, when you decrease the foreground buffer beyond what VFP needs, you can artificially slow down this query, because VFP would start swapping to disk if though there's plenty of memory available. In other words, not how much memory you have affects the speed, but what you are willing to give VFP.

Christof