Legacy Visual FoxPro Usage and Revival Interest
Problem
Some companies still rely on Visual FoxPro for mission‑critical legacy systems, yet the platform suffers from security vulnerabilities, file‑locking and network concurrency issues, and is difficult to modernize without disrupting operations.
Pain points
- Security hole in DBC design allowing arbitrary code execution and file tampering
- Network‑drive file locking causing concurrency conflicts
- Lack of permission controls making DBF/DBC files easily modifiable
- High risk of business disruption when migrating to modern databases or platforms
Questions to verify
- Are these firms' core business processes irreplaceable by modern platforms?
- What is the estimated financial impact on the business if the FoxPro system were to be discontinued?
- How feasible is it to migrate the existing DBF/DBC files to a SQL database?
Evidence
quote · @Anonymous
Here’s my problem with reviving FoxPro in any form: there’s a huge security hole in the Database Container (DBC) design. For DBCs to be useful, they must be read/write to all users (there is no permissions scheme). DBCs have stored procedures that can run any FoxPro code, including Win32 calls made from the FoxPro runtime. The stored procedures are stored as plain text in a “memo” field. Do you see where this is going? With a little technical knowledge, one can modify that INSERT trigger to whatever you like.
quote · @Anonymous
I worked with a physician's office in 2006, and the lead physician had cobbled together a system for patient tracking using Visual FoxPro. It was a monstrosity, and using it over a network drive gave all sorts of file locks and issues with multiple people changing the same record (usually the physician and front of house staff when checking the patient out).
quote · @Anonymous
I know there are still a few niche industry that has an industry standard program written in Visual FoxPro, and I remember as pre COVID 2019 they were still using it. ( Edit: I just called and asked, still using it as of 2026 )Niche but no small business, commodity with over $400M USD annual revenue, the industry together that is easily $2B+.If it is not broke, don't fix it.
Disclaimer: this card is distilled by AI from community discussions as “pain point evidence”. It is a starting point for need analysis and validation, not a “validated market need”. AI has analytical limits; please open the original discussion above to manually verify before key decisions.