Hi

SNIP
>We still use dbfs for lookups, though; it allows mobile breast screening vans to use a dial-up modem against the SQL server at home base with reasonable performance. With the lookups in SQL server the radiographers refused to use it. I suppose we could have done some sort of downloading and caching mechanism, but dbf lookups work very well and it seems counterintuitive not to use them because of some sort of principle.

Agree with this. I work on something like this right now and I can say that nothing can beat a VFP "SET KEY TO ..." or SEEK for lookups. More efficient than enter few letters and the run a query against server.