Yep, your analysis is correct.

There are two ways depending on the data.

1. Is description and budget_version always the same for one project?

In this case, you can use

SELECT name, min(descrip), min(budget_version)

FROM ...

GROUP BY name

This is in fact tricking SQLServer since you have denormalised tables...

2. The other way is substituting your select queries in the frame I posted before. You get something like

SELECT distinct name, descrip, version

     FROM projects_600

UNION

SELECT distinct name, descrip, version

     FROM projects_500 p5

     WHERE NOT EXISTS

          (SELECT p6.name

               FROM projects_600 p6

               WHERE p6.name = p5.name)     

This should do the trick...