Don't bother to replace your FoxPro database
Doing nothing is one option but only if you make a conscious
decision to do nothing. You do have plenty of alternatives open
to you - dotNet, Linq, Access, SQL Server to mention but a few
- ignoring the problem is not an option.
We have clients who are still using MS-DOS versions of FoxPro
from the early 90's. These programs have been running for
fifteen years and their users see no reason to change them.
These DOS versions of FoxPro have been out of Microsoft support
for very nearly as long but that has not stopped the programs
working. The only problems that the users have is that they
are having to downgrade any new computers from Vista. Not
that they have to buy new computers very often. These programs
run very quickly indeed on a 486 computer under Windows 95.
Doing nothing is an attractive proposition if you are sure that
you will continue to have access to the skills that will
occassionally be needed. Once in a while one of our DOS customers
will suffer a problem with file corruption. It's easy enough for
us to recover the data but FoxPro skills are going to become more
and more rare over the next ten years so you do need to be sure
of your support. We have no plans to stop our
support
for FoxPro databases so call us if you're a UK Fox user.
Realistically then, doing nothing is only an option for a
small company, or for a small division within a larger
company who can keep a couple of computers dedicated to
their current FoxPro system. A VFP 9 system should run
reliably for at least the next ten years.
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