>Is there any way that when using a "Select * from table1 into ..." statement that you can prevent "table1" from opening? I have been using "use in table1" to close them. I am trying to limit the number of files open at any time.

VFP SQL select will open the file always. You can check whether it as open before, and close it afterwards if it wasn't, as you already do. That's pretty much all you can do.