>No, I don't think ANSI has a "SET ENGINEBEHAVIOR". It is the VFP8 IMPLEMENTATION that I would rather have seen done differently.

Actually, it does. SQL Server has a compatibility stored procedure to set the compatibility level. This was begun in SQL Server 7.0. 6.5 handled things like including fields in the select stateament that weren't in the group by clause when dealing with aggregate functions.