>I had a user the other day who had a number of problems, not least because a poorly named file (books.sys) had been made readonly. This vital little file holds the next id for our table so is constantly being updated.
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>It opened ok, could be read but now that it was readonly the updates couldn't happen and further problems resulted.
>
>Is there a way I can test if the table is opened and not readonly?

You may use an API approach to detect if a file has a read only status on it. But, IMHO, this is an approach would should be handled by a VFP table, holding the current keys of all tables, where it would always be available within your application.