I found that the dbc that I created was included in the exe. Since it only contained the new views, I hoped that would be OK. When I excluded the dbc and copied the database files to the exe folder, it runs without the error.

My next question is, will this cause any problems in a multiuser environment? In other words, when user A fires up the exe and created their own idx file, what happens when user B does the same? Why does VFP need to write to the dbc when it creates a local index file on a view?