Why does Fox create a foxuser.dbf in every directory it is started in?

The FOXUSER file is what FoxPro uses to track selections you have made from menus, Screens, Location of windows, Browse views, Menu bars, Control Bars ect so the next time you do the same thing, FoxPro knows want field you want to see in a database browse or the last place you moved a window to and uses that information to show it to you.

FOXPRO will create a FoxUser file in the directory it is started in if one does not already exist or where it is told in advance or at startup where to find a foxuser file

How to tell FoxPro where to find a FoxUser File, do one or more of the following.
1. C:\ Autoexec.bat add the line FOXPROWCFG=c:\fpw\config.fpw
modify file c:\fpw\config.fp add the line RESOURCE = C:\FPW\FOXUSER

2. When FoxPro starts from Windows Menu or shortcut, Alter the properties of the shortcut and after the call to FPW add -cc:\fpw\config.fpw

3. Inside the application add the line of code SET RESOURCE TO C:\FPW\FOXUSER

See the FoxPro Help on config.fpw for all the other fun things you can add to the config.fpw file.

THE FOXUSER FILE can hurt your application. Now comes the history lesson.
The FoxUser file was created before networks were really popular and fox was a single user application. The idea behind the file is explained above. When networks became popular the concept of a file to track where people move window to or where a report was located suffered because every computer connected to the network have Fox installed in a different directory. To solve the problem Fox started tracking network user names in the file and it started to grow. One company I when to had a 12Meg FoxUser File. Fox never added any method of cleaning up records in the FoxUser file and to this day in Visual FoxPro 6 the problem still exist.

Here are some things you can do to fix the FoxUser Problem.
1. Make a shell copy with the basic info you want in it and place it on the network. When the Application starts have it look for a renamed version on the users hard drive If it is not there then make one from the network shell copy. In the application, set resource to the users hard drive copy of the file.

2. Another trick other programmers use is to make a copy if the FOXUSER file to the network and and then change the file attributes to read only. FoxPro will not add records to a resource file that is read only. This will restrict your users from useing some of the build in functions of FoxPro. Such as the Diary, Calander, Report form and Query menus and control bars.