Hi, thanks for the response.

1) yes there is

2) it does the same with or without quotes ie fail the syntax check. It checks ok syntacically if I remove the where clause with or without the quotes. It won't work as a query as there is no join on the table in the where clause. Like I say I assume that's because it's a 'query binding' type so I'm guessing this will only work as a AS partiion not a SQL query.

We have other old partitions that have similar code, so I think there might be something different between the 2000 & 2008 editions that isn't now compatible or needs writing a different way!?