>Thanks, Dragan. I was a bit confused by that in that the properties are not listed in dbsetprop but referred to in dbgetprop (where, indeed, it says read-only). Well naturally all properties SHOULD be read-only in GET, as you want to know what they are - not change them. SO Help doesn't specifically say "but would be writeable in dbsetprop()". Anyway, I've tried all permutations of setting the prop but, rather than tell me it can't be done, VFP just keeps registering syntax errors, for Godssakes!
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>I've just experimented and done it 1st time with Alter Table!

Alter Table is a way, though it's not without its dangers - I think that's the reason you need exclusive access to the table to do that. You're basically changing table's structure, even though this time it's not something in the table's header or structure, but rather in the related record in the dbc.