>But can't you acheive all that through the server permissions of the folders that Foxpro databases are stored in?

Well, if you want a user to use your FoxPro ap. That user needs full access to the folder that contains the .DBF files.

That user has access to that folder whether they are in your application or not. Since all the secuirty is build into the ap, if I open the files with VFP I have full access to all the data. (Yes you can use some of the new database events to provent this, but that is easily worked around.)

Now, with a SQL Server ap, you can have the application log into SQL Server using a username an password that the user doesn't know. So, he has ZERO access to the data outside of the ap, and while in the app it's secuirty prevents him from accessing data he can't get to. This is much more secure.

BOb