Yes this did change from VFP7 to VFP8
From VF8 Help File - Behavior Changes Since Visual FoxPro 7.0

SQL Data Engine 
Visual FoxPro contains a new SET ENGINEBEHAVIOR command so that you can control SQL data engine compatibility. This impacts how SQL SELECT commands function. The current default behavior can be set to previous behavior using the SET ENGINEBEHAVIOR command and is described as follows: 

You cannot use the DISTINCT clause with Memo or General fields in a SQL SELECT statement. Instead, wrap a Memo field expression inside a function such as PADR( ) or ALLTRIM( ). 
The GROUP BY clause does not support Memo or General fields. 
The GROUP BY clause must list every field in the SELECT list, except for fields contained in an aggregate function, such as the COUNT( ) function. In addition, the GROUP BY clause must also list every field in a HAVING clause, except for fields contained in an aggregate function. 

A SQL SELECT statement can contain the HAVING clause without the GROUP BY clause, as long as the SQL SELECT statement does not contain any aggregate functions. 
SQL SELECT statements do not automatically remove trailing spaces from the values that are compared using the LIKE operation. In versions prior to Visual FoxPro 8.0, both values in the LIKE operation were trimmed from the right prior to evaluation so that the LIKE operation could not possibly report all the correct matches.