You have a 65,000 element limit. In ADIR it uses multiple columns so, if * by 17000 you are greater than 65,000 you may exceed that limit. I had a problem just like this a couple of days ago - I upgraded to VFP9 and the problem disappeared as there is no array limit in VFP9.
>Would there be a file limit? I am trying to do a directory with about 17,000 files.
-=Gary