Visual FoxPro gives us the flexibility to embed files into the APP/EXE file. Other languages have the ability, but require the developer to use resource functions to access such files. In Visual FoxPro, on the other hand, accessing embedded files happens completely transparently. When you open a file that has the same file name as an embedded one, Visual FoxPro uses the internal one.

Suddenly you get a "Memo file is missing or invalid" error message when you open a table. You close all open applications, run Visual FoxPro, open the table. and no error. All seems to be well, until a few weeks later you get the error again.

A long time I believed like so many others that Visual FoxPro uses the area beyond 2 GB for locking purposes. wOOdy was the first to point out to me that this isn't the case. He said that this fact further reduces the number of records in a table. So how does locking really work in Visual FoxPro?