It's not a bug, it's a feature! :)
VFP8 does a quick check for table corruption every time you USE a table. To do this it needs to lock the header momentarily, to get an accurate count of the number of records.
Of course, that additional locking can cause scalability issues, so the released version contains the command SET TABLEVALIDATE, which allows you to specify whether you want this extra integrity check.
SET TABLEVALIDATE TO 0
-Tom
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