I have been studying a few of the threads on here regarding the various methods for emailing from vfp. I am looking for advice/experiences with each option. Here is what I know and my experience so far:

1)Tried using createobject('outlook.application')
Didn't work - hung on createobject - so I didn't pursue it any further. Also have heard there are a lot of issues with this, and seems to require more overhead, and relies on outlook being installed.

2) Downloaded marshallsoft trialware. Seems to work great.
I used it with my client's smtp server, AND, i downloaded a shareware smtp server called POSTCAST which loaded/configured in 2 minutes, right on my laptop, and used marshallsoft with that smtp server. It seems pretty cool.

3)Read about wwIpstuff -but haven't tried it yet.
Any thoughts on wwIpStuff vs. marshallsoft?

4) Read a little about Mabry/MAPI - don't know too much?

PERFORMANCE is a big concern to me. The application I am using it with is a barcoding app, with RF gun(s). The mscomm control is used to capture RF scan data. The app needs to record scan data, actually, a PAIR of scans that will probably be issued within a second of each other. Under certain conditions, e.g. bad scan data, I need to send an email to a plant supervisor that the scan was bad, but then I need to return control to the app, within a second, ideally.

Maybe I should send a message from my barcode application to some sort of queue table, and have a separate application running that does the email sending, so that control returns to my application right away?

All suggestions are welcome

TIA