Nancy -

Thanks for your suggestion. Actually my original code used MODI FILE rather than MODI COMM. I switched to MODI COMM when I started to debug and couldn't find MODI FILE in the help system. Did they drop it with the V7 release? Either way I get the same error. I tried substituting your code suggestion IE

IF ! FILE("c:\program files\freemansoftware\tip\fedcodes.txt")
MESSAGEBOX( "Oops! " + "c:\program files\freemansoftware\tip\fedcodes.txt does not exist", 0 )
ELSE
modi file "c:\program files\freemansoftware\tip\fedcodes.txt"
ENDIF

with the same results. The IF statement seems to see the file OK so it moves to the MODI FILE but the MODI FILE returns the error that it is a bad path or filename. Go figure!! I should mention that the "user pc" and the "developer's pc" are the same. In the user's case I'm running the compiled EXE from an installation directory
(c:\program files\freemansoftware\tip) and in the developer's case I'm running via the VFP7 developer's interface. The file reference is absolute and points the the same file in both cases so it shouldn't matter.

Any more ideas?