Amit you are right.

Andreas solution has the effect of returning the column name to the query string, when I was looking for a value in the table.

However, his approach, that...

Yes Vladan, the problem was that somestring contained Null values in some of the records

OK, I figured out that the coalesce fails when the contents are null, so a isnull(...) seems to have fixed up the problem

The table I have only has uniqueness by the group, and no there may be more or less than 3 occurrences, and I think this is where the problem lies.

So in...

Thanks for this good info -

Please explain what you mean when you say this is best done on the client? Do you mean this is best achieved by a programme...

I have found the answer - the server name is not MyMachineName\MSSQL$NewInstance its MyMachineName\NewInstance

I have since discovered that the MSDE installs with windows auth by default. So I will reinstall with Mixed Mode enabled....

I have tried with Query Analyser and Enterprise Manager same problem

Try the neat chart control at carlosag.net