ok, for anyone who is interested:

the work around in order to be able to print Fox2.5 reports from vfp 6 SP5 with a page range is as follows:

rptcmd = "report form dostest.frx noconsole to print"

* *** reset variables
_PBPage = 1
_PePage = 32767
PrintJob
   * *** set the print range
   _PBPage = 5
   _PEPage = 5
   * *** print the report
   &rptcmd
EndPrintJob

the vfp 'range' clause in the 'report form' command will not work with fox2.5 reports. also, just setting the variables '_PBPage' and '_PEPage' will not work. you must encapsulate the actual report command in 'PrintJob - EndPrintJob'. in the above test i have successfully printed only page 5 of a 7 page fox2.5 report from vfp 6.