Josef
You are describing something that bites everybody who converts a VFP app for SQL server! It used to be far worse before VFP handled null in local fields.
My advice is to get a tool like xcase to manage your databases. Allow NULLS for all your date and datetime fields and set a default value of NULL. Xcase will create scripts to update both your local and SQL tables so you don't have to worry about it.
Regards
JR
"... They ne'er cared for us
yet: suffer us to famish, and their store-houses
crammed with grain; make edicts for usury, to
support usurers; repeal daily any wholesome act
established against the rich, and provide more
piercing statutes daily, to chain up and restrain
the poor. If the wars eat us not up, they will; and
there's all the love they bear us."
-- Shakespeare: Coriolanus, Act 1, scene 1