Hi Mike:

Actually my problems are greatest during Startup when I guess most programmers would put up a spash screen.

The 2 big killers for be are "Variable Not Found" and the "File Open Box".

The "Variable not found" is caused by an Index Tag getting lost and the "File Open Box" is because the program no longer recognizes a .dbf file as a VFP file because of a lost header.

The program could cough at this point up to 15 times until all the files have been passed over to get to the Main Menu. The Main Menu, then gives them a Utility where they can do a thing called "Heavy ReIndex" which appends all the .dbf files into backup structures and reindexes them.

Only about 10% of my users have this problem and it ususally happens when they are starting a new school year after their computers have been sitting idle all summer.

It has been one of the biggest bugs I have had with VFP. I have had to build enormous blocks of code in all of my packages to deal with this issue because it happens in all my software.

Some of my data files are over 10 MB and there is a lot of read/write when it is making decisions and I find that if the hard drive is not in perfect shape, they can have trouble during operations. So my users have to run ScanDisk and CHKDSK to keep my stuff going when all their other software works fine.

So Slash Screens are not my direction of improvement. What I need are data files that hold together and this to me is where VFP has been less than adequate.

Mike Smith