Helen,

Win 2K server is back up and running. Many thanks.

It looks like the problem came from stopping and starting the service.

The reason I wanted to stop and start the service was that I was
running a metadata update routine, which failed because a stored
procedure was "in use", even though no-one was logged in.

With Classic is there a correct way to shut down a database, or re-
initialise the service?

Roger Vellacott