Peter I saw the earlier reply from Dan, below: "Also there is a maintenance/ script specifically for tweaking user preferences without the need for constructing potentially messy SQL by hand." Whilst I am not aware of the maintenance script (it would be somewhat helpful to mention it when referring to it) I defer to Dan as I was not aware there was one. I assume it is the userOptions.php script? Rob himself has quite recently pointed out that at least one maintenance script should not be relied on to provide a known outcome. Several of the maintenance scripts appear not to have much text describing their use or what exactly they do to the database. So, for my very specific requirements I will stick with SQL (the non-messy variety!) as for the last year it has served me flawlessly and enabled me to become far more knowledgeable in terms of the core database and to have flexibility that I would otherwise not have had through a maintenance script. Paul On 10/25/07 10:49 AM, "Monahon, Peter B." <Peter.Monahon(a)USPTO.GOV> wrote: