>>>>>I may have been barking up the wrong tree. I converted the VFP memvar to type DateTime and still get the same error. (Which, again, does not occur in the VFP 6 version of the app running against the same SQL Server database). Here is the relevant info. Ndxfl1 is a remote view against a table by that name in the database. The remote view is populated correctly. The DateTime field is d_ate.
>>>>>
>>>>>The command:
>>>>>
>>>>>

select d_ate=max(d_ate)
>>>>>            from ndxfl1
>>>>>            where ir_table=?nirfile
>>>>>              and ir_type=?nir_type
>>>>>              and d_ate<=?m.mdbegdb2
>>>>>

>>>>
>>>>>Connectivity error: [Microsoft][ODBC SQL Server Driver][SQL Server]Line 4: Incorrect syntax near 'd_ate'.
>>>>
>>>>I'm not trying to break Nadya's record... was looking for something else and just noticed this. I think the error came from m-dot in the last line. SQL server never heard of m-dot.
>>>
>>>It may not be a record but not bad, replying to a message from 2005. I read your reply and had no memory at all of posting that question.
>>>
>>>Doesn't the value of the parameter get substituted before the query gets passed to SQL Server?
>>
>>Right. Well, no way to check now. Let this stay one of the great unsolved mysteries of our times (and times square, times cube, times tesseract etc etc).
>
>IIRC it did get resolved, but darned if I can remember what the problem was.

There's no big money if you try to sell a book "not so big but still solved mysteries of 2005", specially if the subtitle says "most of which aren't actually remembered".

A non-event happened, folks, nothing to see here, move along...