>>I'm not sure how efficient following query will be but it shoud be backend independed

...
>>SELECT SPACE(50) as cEmpName, SPACE(10) as cUserID, CAST(null as C(16) NULL) as cUsGrLink_pk
>>	FROM Users
>>
>>	WHERE cUserID = (SELECT MIN(cUserID) FROM Users )
>>or
>>	WHERE cUserID = (SELECT MAX(cUserID) FROM Users )
>>or
>>	WHERE cUserID = (SELECT TOP cUserID FROM Users ORDER BY cUserID)
>>
>>

>
>The original select works without any WHERE condition in the UNION portion and returns just one empty record. Are you saying, it would not work the same way in SQL Server?

What select are you refering to and what it has tio do with backend independancy?