Remi wrote:

Here's my thinking : Don't use cursors, ever. Then if you find a situation where a cursor is faster than a set based approach or there's no set...

It seems we have the same kind of problem - see Insert into problem with linked server.

What happens on your server...

You assumption is correct

I added a simple "select @minid" to the code above and constructed a similar cursor example. Then I ran the...

That might work, I haven't tried it. I was hoping that I could use linked server since it is more elegant and probably also faster.

Not sure I know that either, so I look forward to your reply...

If there is a unique id, then it is easy:

while (@id is not null)

      select @id = min(id) from table where id > @id

and continue until you get null.

Did you run my example on your server? It runs on my server...

All I can say is that I have (mis)used the "insert into exec" feature (without the linked server)...

My first reply disappeared - maybe it will be back later...

It is possible to combine "insert into" and "exec" as follows (a simple example):

create table testtable (id int)

go

create proc testproc

as...