Good points on your end, too. (You know, in some ways, this is not unlike the experience some developers have had in using activex controls, only to find out a year later that Excel version 17.3SP5b671 installs an update to the control and you app no longer works....)

Ultimately, I think the decision depends on the type of clients you serve (as you have pointed out, earlier in this thread). My own opinion is that VFP tables are absolutely appropriate and viable options in many scenarios; and that MSDE is an appropriate and viable option in many scenarios.

Of course, we haven't even touched on MySQL....





>Hi Vin,
>
>Good points all.
>
>The main problem I guess I have with the approach of employing the MSDE over native VFP tables is the implied loss of control. MSDE is a shareware application that can be and is updated by MS at its discretion, not mine. This is significantly different than what a user gets when they buy a standalone VFP application from me as the data engine is encapsulated within the application itself.
>
>In the case of standalone FoxPro applications, one could have a VFP7 application running against VFP7 data on the same machine with a FoxPro 2.6WIN application. No problem. But you can't really do this with MSDE as the MSDE is a separate application itself.
>
>Not only is the MSDE a separate application but it is a separate application that may be updated by any number of subsequent installations (other than those we as developers would design) over the lifetime of the machine.
>
>Personally, I don't like giving up that much control to others. And I especially don't like fielding calls from angry customers stating that the custom application I wrote for them 10 years ago no longer works and what am I going to do about it!
>
>By employing the MSDE as a 3rd party data engine we as developers are giving up control over our applications. The customer has no idea of the decisions we have made on their behalf and if the application breaks in the future because our code relied on undocumented behavior of the MSDE that no longer works in a subsequent version or just that MS has decided that they will no longer support certain keywords (who knows what will happen in the future?) it will be us who will get the angry calls and letters from the lawyers. Not MS.
>
>If you are comfortable with that. Have at it!
>
>Hugh