>>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?

This is what I currently have for VFP9. The returning result is correct:

SELECT DISTINCT padr(PROPER(ALLTRIM(Employees.cEmployee_first_name) + SPACE(1) + ;
	Employees.cEmployee_last_name), 50) AS cEmpName, ;
   Users.cUserID, Usgrlink.cUsgrlink_pk  ;
	 FROM Users INNER JOIN USGRLINK ;
   ON Users.iID = Usgrlink.iUserID ;
    INNER JOIN EMPLOYEE_TEAMS ;
   ON Employee_teams.cEmployee_teams_pk = Usgrlink.cEmployee_teams_fk ;
   INNER JOIN EMPLOYEES ;
   ON Users.cUsers_pk = Employees.cUsers_fk ;
   INNER JOIN Departments on Employee_teams.cDepartments_fk = Departments.cDepartments_pk ;
   UNION ;
   SELECT SPACE(50) as cEmpName, SPACE(10) as cUserID, CAST(null as C(16) NULL) as cUsGrLink_pk FROM Users