How embarrassing

I blush to confess that the database problem that I has had me swearing a blue streak for nearly a week is not, in fact, a Windows problem at all. The structure file (the source code; think of it as the recipe for making a database) is damaged in a very peculiar way, which only shows up in the compiled application on Windows (the Mac application is fine too).

None of my various testing and repairing tools could find the problem, which I only discovered by following up a clue from the online help forum. I still don't know exactly what is wrong, and the application still doesn't run on Windows; but I know where it must be and am pretty sure that I know what it'll look like when I do find it.

A clever person once said that one learns best by making mistakes: how true. I've learned one hell of a lot about resources during the last few hours, including the fact that I made a truly awful BSDT of a mistake about two years ago which is only now coming to light. Fascinating.