>Garrett, Dragan
>
>Thanks to both for responding. First I changed the name of my business logic error procedure to "procedure reedError" from "procedure readError". I also tried Dragan's recommendation and put it in gotFocus. vfp blows before any event fires. I will look at Naomi's code although I was hoping for a solution a bit more succinct
>
>Let me know if you think of something else

I wonder whether it has something to do with some setting. I've just started a VFP8SP1 that I have around, and the couple of date fields just don't seem to have any validation on them, and if I type anything impossible, the date box just blanks - the invalid date is just not accepted, that's all.

A few settings that may differ from normal:

	set talk off
	set ansi off
	set escape off
	set confirm on
	set notify off
	set strictdate to 0

My bet is the notify setting - try that first.