Thanks, that helps..
I tried using your second suggestion, using CursorAttach(). It all works as expected, except that it seems that the cursor adapter is sending each record update to sqlserver as a separate transaction.. For example, if I change three records at the front, create the diffgram, set the BuffermodeOveride=5 and the conflictchecktype = 3,set the updatecmd='' and then change the second record in sql server: when I attach the cursor and do a tableupdate(.T.,.F.) the result is that the first record gets updated but the second and third do not.
I would have expected all three updates to be wrapped in a single transaction and they would all have succeeded or failed together.
Do I explicitly need to start an sql transaction in this type of case?

Ilmar