>Now, I know that perhaps some reading this may have already chalked this up to the many layers of W2KServer... but my questions are thus:
>
>1. What exactly is the lag?
Who knows? Probably client side caching as well.

>2. Can I decrease the lag via settings/config of the server?
Have you tried FLUSH? I don't think it will make a difference, but it's the simplest test.
After that, probably the registry edits we had for Terminal Server 2000 will help.
Baesically turn off write-behind and caching on workstation and Server.

>3. Can I decrease the lag via hardware improvements? (wide scsi, or beter)
Probably not if it's in the order of seconds, that doesn't sound like hardware unless you're using a floppy or a ZIP drive.

>4. If there is no tangible ways to improve such a dbf table based approach.. then what
>suggestions are there of *other* ways to create a centralized job engine
Files in a directory? That's how we did it in FPDos :)