I have run across the same problem. The ff is from a different site (alas, I've lost the reference--it was on a Palm Pilot for some time...). There are comments by the host of the site, but I've included it all. It may also help to redirect your fox resources to the local drive instead of the server (as I've seen encouraged elsewhere in this forum). While not perfect, this has helped on several computers on the network:
WATCOM Win386 error
I have a user that needs to run FoxPro for Windows 2.6, when they start up FoxPro form the server they get the message
"WATCOM win386 Read error" What is this? The users do not have anything loaded on their PC's. All FoxPro 2.6 files are loaded on the server.Any help would be appreciated.
The first answer here is the problem with the Watcom error. The Watcom error always requires a reboot.
1) Corrupt system resource files usually cause the Watcom Error. Delete the files FOXUSER.DBF and FOXUSER.FPT on the computer that gets the error. This is for all OS's
2) This can also be due to an invalid or no TEMP statement in autoexec.bat. To remedy this, either remove the invalid statement, or add one in using the syntax SET TEMP=C:\TEMP (or whatever temp directory you want)<This is usually Win 3.1>
3)It can also be due to an invalid PATH statement, or that there is at least 5 MB of disk space available for the creation of these temporary files. You should also make sure that your TEMP dir has not reached the limit of 512 files. <- This is also usually Win 3.1>
4) Increase the size of your swap file and make it permanent <- Win 3.1>
5) Reduce the size of your disk caching software. SMARTDRV is the disk cache provided with Windows 3.1. Win 95/98 and WinNT use MS Fast Find, and it often loads in the Startup Folder of Win 95 and NT machines. Unload it from startup.
6) Another problem can be because of low resources. Check what is loaded in Startup, etc. Items like the shortcut bars from MS Office, Corel, or Lotus need to be removed, especially depending on the amount of memory in the machine. Follow the Insufficient Memory kb steps to add the following items to CONFIG.SYS. This requires a reboot.
FILES=150
BUFFERS=60
STACKS=17,256
FCBS=16,0
7) Also remove items from the StartUp Group and from the LOAD= or RUN= lines of WIN.INI. This also requires a reboot.