>You can, of course, create a VFP COM server that can return results as XML that can be read into a dataset... but then, of course, if the data is local to the machine, you have to install the COM Server on the client and performance would probably be worse than through OLE-DB.

No, this is .NET specific and the only think related to VFP is the Message.dbf table. What you say, is however, quite practical as I have been doing it from our WS for more than a year now.

>However, if the data is on a server and not on the local computer, and if the datasets returned are small, you might find the COM Server on the server (or a Web Service) an acceptable solution.

So, I guess, I need to create a setup that will install the required components. What is the process of installing the VFP OLEDB provider in such a situation?