If you maintain a Visual FoxPro application that reads Excel files, there is a good chance you have used APPEND FROM (filename) TYPE XL8 at some point. It is clean, fast to write, and it worked reliably for years. Then one day a user upgrades to Microsoft 365, saves a spreadsheet the same way they always have, and your VFP program either silently produces an empty cursor, complains that the sheet is missing, or — worst of all — crashes the entire session outright.
