I was hoping to see code like the following:

 
LOCAL oDE
oDE = CREATEOBJECT('custom_de')
set
WAIT WINDOW "DataEnviroment has been created"
BROWSE
 
DEFINE CLASS custom_de as dataenvironment
  AutoOpenTables = .T.
  AutoCloseTables = .T.
  ADD OBJECT oCustomer as csrCustomer
   
  PROCEDURE Init
    IF This.AutoOpenTables
      WAIT WINDOW "OpenTables() is about to be called"
      This.OpenTables()
    ENDIF
  ENDPROC
  
  PROCEDURE Destroy
    IF this.AutoCloseTables
      WAIT WINDOW "CloseTables() is about to be called"
      This.CloseTables()
    ENDIF
  ENDPROC
  
  PROCEDURE OpenTables
    WAIT WINDOW "Currently executing the OpenTables() method"
  ENDPROC
  
  PROCEDURE CloseTables
    WAIT WINDOW "Currently executing the CloseTables() method"
  ENDPROC
ENDDEFINE
 
DEFINE CLASS csrCustomer as Cursor
  Alias = "Customer"
  CursorSource = "Customer"
  Database = HOME(2) + "Data\TestData.dbc"
ENDDEFINE

In either case, is this similar to what you have? I don't understand why you have NODEFAULT then immediately followed by DODEFAULT() clauses in your code. Can you show more of your code. Maybe that'll help understand why your code doesn't work. By the way, the code above work just fine in my environment.