>Trying to open from Excel a VFP5 (free) table I get a message stating there is a problem with the .dbf file and it will not open it.
>This happened from a regula VFP5 free .dbf asd from a .dbf created using a "copy to" command.
>I was promoting VFP's use of the universal dbf format as a feature with a client that wanted to use Access and wound up with egg in my face.
>Any ideas?

If you try open a VFP 5.0 table, make sure that the VISUAL FOXPRO 5.0 ODBC DRIVER is installed on your computer.
If you have FOXPRO 2.X ODBC DRIVER is installed, use the COPY TO FOX2X command to convert VFP 5.0 table to FOXPRO 2.X table that can be accessed with the FOXPRO 16 bits ODBC DRIVER from EXCEL..

Pierre.