>I have a question regarding rushmore optimizing a query of a free fpw26 (pre-dbc era) table. I am using ado.net to access the table in web applicaiton. Does ado.net recognize the associated index tag of the free table? Is the index tag necessary?

I think the optimization issue has nothing to do with ADO.NET, Neil. The "intelligence" that knows how to work with (and optimize) a query to VFP free tables resides in the VFP ODBC driver or VFP OLEDB provider you're using to access the free tables.

I have done very little work using the VFP ODBC driver or using the VFP OLEDB Provider technology, so I can't really shed much more light on how well they optimize things, but I would assume that the ability to optimize queries using those access methods is the same as using VFP natively as they both encapsulate the VFP database "engine".

I also undestand that the VFP OLEDB provider is more efficient, and probably what you want to use to allow ADO.NET to work with these files.