Maybe something is initialized to .f. that you are missing and VFP8 is not as forgiving (or as smart?) as previous versions when it comes to implicit typing.

This was giving me fits (for about an hour before I came to the UT to check stuff out).

This gives the error "Not a character expression":

Local ;
groupName as String , ;
tableAlias1 as String , ;
tmpCursor as String  
groupName= 'a45'				
tableAlias1 = "x"+Sys(2015)			
outValue = 0
Use "SecGroup" In 0 Alias ( tableAlias1 ) Again Shared  
Select iiD from (tableAlias1) Where Lower(cGrpName) == Lower(groupName) into Cursor (tmpCursor)

This gives the error "Variable 'TMPCURSOR' not found, which is what I think I used to get from VFP6/7 but can't remember at the moment:

*Local ;
*groupName as String , ;
*tableAlias1 as String , ;
*tmpCursor as String  
groupName= 'a45'				
tableAlias1 = "x"+Sys(2015)			
outValue = 0
Use "SecGroup" In 0 Alias ( tableAlias1 ) Again Shared  
Select iiD from (tableAlias1) Where Lower(cGrpName) == Lower(groupName) into Cursor (tmpCursor)

This works fine:

Local ;
groupName as String , ;
tableAlias1 as String , ;
tmpCursor as String  
groupName= 'a45'				
tableAlias1 = "x"+Sys(2015)			
tmpCursor = "t"+Sys(2015)			
outValue = 0
Use "SecGroup" In 0 Alias ( tableAlias1 ) Again Shared  
Select iiD from (tableAlias1) Where Lower(cGrpName) == Lower(groupName) into Cursor (tmpCursor)