>Does that mean that if I open the table in a different work area with a different alias and insert a record into the other alias there isn't an error generated in VFP 7 ?

I think that what is being said, and urged, is that you not do this at all. It's seems very questionable to me to do a table insert during a field level validation. How can the row change until the validation finishes? How can the validation finish until the row changes? See the problem?

Maybe if you tell us why you want to insert the record, and what the context is, we can help with the design issue.