I happened to do a Google search yesterday, and it brought me to an MSDN page that describes the APPLY operator, and an OUTER APPLY is roughly equivalent to a LEFT OUTER JOIN, while a CROSS APPLY is similar to an INNER JOIN, so yes, you are probably right. However, those of us trying to help you can't necessarily know what your objective is unless you quite explicitly state it, and that wasn't clear at all until your last post. It's usually a good idea to state all the details up front and help ends up coming much faster that way. Glad you have it solved.