Gail

If we ever meet I'll be buying you a beer. Hell - I'll be buying you several! Many thanks for the link, if gives me something to work with.

pcd

I use the following command when I stuff up the collation:

start /wait setup.exe /qb INSTANCENAME=MSSQLSERVER REINSTALL=SQL_Engine REBUILDDATABASE=1 SAPWD=Password01 SQLCOLLATION=SQL_Latin1_General_CP1_CI_AS

There are various other switches etc - refer BOL. Yes it does...

I believe that there may be a 10,000 row limit with some xml imports / queries.

pcd

Make sure you are aware of a concept called the 'Connection Trap' and 'Fan Out' issues. Had a customer once who had bridging tables that allowed them to see who...