Hi John,

I'm not Hilmar but I justed wanted to say that YOU are correct and the other person is wrong.

Now, if that other person qualifies it with something like 'well I'm talking overnight when the application may be running but no one is using it' then they could be correct. But it would mess up the day that someone came in to use the system late and the backup started.

We just had a major banking incident here affecting all the bank's customers across Canada and the problem was a bad update was "backed out" but it turned out the backup was faulty in the first place. I only mention that to say that things can look good but one can get nasty surprises when actually used.

cheers

>Hilmar,
>While on the subject of backups:
>
>I am fixing to have a discussion with somone who thinks he knows it all. Ever heard of one of those guys? :)
>
>He has already informed me that he has backup software that can back files up even though they are in use, and get a good backup. I did not argue because I did not have time.
>
>BUT, Here is what I believe to be the truth:
>
>If you back files up while they are being updated, (use Foxpro for an example), the index file can possibly be out of sync with it's associated header file/table. I would guess the same would be true for memo (FPT) files since they are separate files in Foxpro.
>
>I have always believed this to be true. I'd like to know if I am correct because if so, I will ONLY consider a good backup to be taken when the system is down.
>
>Assuming I am right (and I may not be), I would think a better way to backup would be to have a menu option within my app, that would backup the files but only do so when no updates are occurring. That may not be so simple to accomplish but it seems it would sure be a nice feature.
>
>Thanks,
>John