>Though let me quickly try from straight VFP , not from our environment.
>
>UPDATE. The same thing is happening from VFP itself.
>SET NOTIFY is OFF.
>When I set it to ON, it worked. Why my VFP default is OFF?

Your environment can be seen by

modi comm sys(2019)

i.e. I think you may have a config.fpw somewhere that you may have forgotten about. Also, if you're using environment manager with a script, any startup commands (something like "do home()+[vfpstart]") - any of these can change your settings.