>I am running SDT and Visual Extend. When I add new fields, etc. and run my app (thru runtime - like a client), the updates get applied correctly but certain files are written like new in the update directory. If I dont catch it they overwrite my good files and I lose all the data. Not all files are re-created, it appears that only 41 do, and most of these (but not all are free tables). One of the files is a system counter file, VFXSYSID and that causes BIG problems. I cant figure out why it builds these tables in update since they already exist in the data directory and their structure hasnt even changed but I need a way to unilaterally stop this from happening. I know update can run as update all or a specific table, but is there a way to run it to ignore certain tables. I'm willing to hard code the names of the tables I never way updated, I just dont know where to put the code. Can anyone help me?

1. For a test, create a new "test" folder and place a copy of all your datafiles, dbc files and SDT files in this folder. Then open the DBC in the Test and make this the current DBC.

2. Open SDT Explorer and verify that the paths to all database and free tables are pointing to the correct tables in the new data folder.

3. Click the Validate Meta Data in SDT Explorer to validate all your tables.

4. Exit SDTE, and CLOSE ALL

5. Open the "real" DBC and bring up SDTE again.

6. Make a few minor changes to some of your FREE tables.

7. Exit and close all again.

8. Copy the updated DBC files and 10 SDT Meta Data files to the test folder. Zip up the contents of this folder for ease of repeat tests.

9. Test the update procedure on the Test folder under your runtime conditions.

If the over-writing occurs. unzip the file you created in step 8 to recreate the test files. Open the SDT.VCX class in the class browser. Modify the NeedUpdate method in the SDTMgr class. Set a break point on the last line below:

do case

* If no table was specified, do them all.

   case empty(lcAlias)

Once the code starts tracing, you can set more breakpoints on repetitive code to speed up the debugging process.