Hi Dominic,
if you read Microsoft Visual FoxPro 8_0 SP1 Readme.htm you found this issue fixed:
Grid - HighlightForeColor property appears white when set to black.
Then:
1. you use a VFP8 runtime, replace with VFP8SP1
2. Issue is fixed only on VFP8SP1 development
( if this is true, VFP have another global problem,
on a good dev env the kernel routines must to be unique )
Fabio