Maybe a different direction from where you were but since you're on 2008 I'd take advantage of the availability of Powershell.

$today = get-date -format yyyyMMdd

$concatenatedFile = "conCatFiles_$today.prn"

$csvOut = "backupReport_$today.csv"

foreach ($file...

I also run 2005 and 2008 on my laptop with no issues. Just don't do what one of our developers did recently and install one on top of the...

See if this will work for you.

DECLARE @command varchar(1000)

SELECT @command = '

BEGIN

declare @colVal varchar(19)

Set @colVal = "<<^KqdP/" + char(63)+ ";SP<_]LA_" + char(63) + ""

USE [?]

update table set column...

I agree with you about Date being clearer but since the OP didn't specify version I thought to give him an alternative.

Edit: Never mind - I just noticed the full...

Since you only want yyyy-mm-dd try convert

SELECT

asset.asset_tag,

contracts.contract_description,

contracts.contract_number,

item.description,

asset.serial_number,

asset.purchase_date,

contracts.num_licenses,

convert(char(10), contracts.begin_date, 120) as begin_date -- (returns yyyy-mm-dd)

convert(char(10), contracts.end_date, 120) as end_date -- (returns yyyy-mm-dd)