>>My experience is that pressing Esc always fires the valid clause, because I've had to put
>>if lastkey() = 27
>> return .T.
>>endif
>>in my valid clauses.
>>
>>So I don't see it as an anomaly.
>
>I have found my mistake. I used "\?" in those
>push buttons. The on-line help said it would fire
>the VALID if a default escape button was specified.
>I have removed all my "\? now.

Yep, all my forms have a cancel or close button - glad you sorted it out.