Hi Bob,

>True, but many of our clients are already SQL Server users, so that isn't an issue, they just add our database to one of their servers and on they go. But, I also certainly wouldn't AVOID all the benefits of SQL Server cause you have to install it... that's a one time task that doesn't take much time at all. Let's be practical here.

Again, I think this is due to differences in the scope of an application. If you're thinking in one time projects this is more practical than when having 10ths or hundreds of installations of one particular product.

Personally I want to avoid a situation where I've got a couple of dozen or maybe a few hundred clients running my products on SQL server, where there is a higher number of potiential problems in maintaining and supporting the system:

- Setting up the SQL database server (Time consuming)
- Trouble shooting. I hate to think about the work that would have been comming to me when the slammer worm hit our clients.
- Maintaining the database (Security)
- Client connection problems (ODBC) etc.

For me, the simple .DBf approach pays off. It simply works when the VFP runtime is installed. No versioning problems, no connection problems, no additional setup procedure for the database etc. I even can dump the application and setup.exe in one particular directory ask, the administrate to create a shortcut to the startup script and we're up and running.

Walter,