I'm getting the same error and have it narrowed it down to an update statement. It's running on 2008 and updating via a linked server (2000), and if there are multiple rows to be updated it kicks out the error. If there's one row to be updated, it works fine. This same process (update via linked server to 2000) works fine when ran on 2005. SQL 2008 is at 10.0.4.4000, and linked server (2000) is at 8.0.2055. It uses a temp table and I have changed it to use a permanent table and same error occurs. Multiple inserts to the linked server work fine. Any help would be appreciated.