Hm, should have checked this link first...

Still I am not yet convinced, or at least a little confused:

Given a table "a" with columns "cola" and "colrestricted".

User "Test" only has access to column "cola", but not to "colrestricted".

Then I execute the following queries:

SELECT * FROM sys.objects WHERE EXISTS(SELECT cola FROM a)

SELECT * FROM sys.objects WHERE EXISTS(SELECT 1 FROM a)

SELECT * FROM sys.objects WHERE EXISTS(SELECT * FROM a)

Now I get an error from both the 2nd and the 3rd query! (Permission denied on colrestricted)

Why is query 2 (SELECT 1... ) giving me an error?

Thought Id ask you first instead of addressing this to Conor directly. There is probably a simple explanation...

Thanks!