>Could anyone give me a hint on how to set application, data, and other paths in an application class without using an ini text file. I want to use a table for the ini file. It seems that the app does not know where data files are located until I have a reference to the table with the path info.

Well, it would have to find that table, the same way it would have to find an INI or XML file to read the info from. You can't avoid that. If you are distributing an EXE and copying that EXE to each workstation, I would assume that you would place the INI in the same folder as the EXE, so it reads the path to the data server from there and changes accordingly. If you replace the INI (user configurable-file) for a DBF in the same place then that is basically the same and the same idea applies.

HTH