Ok, so the problem I have is like this:

I have a database which is in MS Foxpro format. There are regular updates to the data, so converting is not an option - I need some way to be able to query the data.

Obviously I could use Foxpro - but I'd prefer to avoid buying that if I can help it.

I had assumed that I'd be able to set up an ODBC connection and use some other package - e.g. MS Access (which I'm familiar with and have a license for). Unfortunately, that solution doesn't seem to be working very well. The system keeps locking up (possibly due to the size of the database - there are several Gb of tables), and when it displays information, it doesn't seem to be accurate - i.e. when I examine particular records they don't show what I'd expect. However the integrity of the data is fine - if I use the front end provided to me with the data I can see the data as I'd expect. However, this front end isn't enough for me - I want to do some deeper analysis of the data, so need to be able to access/query it in some way.

I've a little bit of experience in mySQL as well as Access, so I'm sure I can learn to live with any other database package out there. I'm just hoping someone here might be able to suggest a free (ideally) alternative to getting foxpro - e.g. would postgres or mysql do the job for me and be able to deal with this data format?

Thanks in advance

You can connect Foxpro via OLE DB. Postgres does support OLE DB.

Or google for zenkov.com, that guy wrote an OLE DB connector.

Thanks wellju

it is a strange problem - I doubt it is memory related as I have 100GB of free hard disk space on a brand new disk and 4GB ram (64 Bit windows). I'll check later (on a different PC now) if I can replicate the same problem with smaller tables (the one I really need to access is 500MB), but when I query it, it appears to display all identical records. However, when I join another table (some of the fields are indexes/references to other tables) it displays the appropriate records. That is all using MS-Access 2007 with the microsoft OLE DB connector.

Would mysql work also - I'm familiar with that, but not with postgres?