Looks like I made the some part of it work.

This SQL will drop the unwanted records and now I have to somehow add the new end dates.

delete A

...

Will this work on SQLSERVER 2000?

This is a one time thing and I have to finish today.. so after some thought process.. this what I have come up with....

alter table mult_vals add cnt smallint

--This tells...

I am on SS2000.... Any solution that will work here.

Thanks

Alright - thanks. Will try that.

Thanks - I understand this solution... Actually my bad - I simplified the situation.

In the real table - the columns are not really bit columns - those are various kinds...

SQL Server 2000

Thanks

Here is a query that I need to run every day for some reports and this is taking over 2 hours. Can someone help me optimize this one.

copied below is...

I did try the solution given above (with clustered index) but somehow it was not working for me.

I am not on my machine right now and do not have exactly...

Thanks to both of you - It turned out that the table also was not an exact copy which was the main cause for the gap.

I will fix the query...

Thanks - I understand the approach.

Hope it will make it better as far as the run time is concerned.

That was not correct example

2009-01-01 05:38:00 Table 1

2009-01-01 05:36:00 Table 2

2009-01-01 05:37:00 Tbl2

2009-01-01 05:38:00 Tbl2

The Tbl1 timestamp is...

Thanks for the solution.

But I gave a simpified answer to the question earlier. The actual requirement is this

From all the records that are within 2 minutes

Try and pick the...

That is very correct.

The aim here is to find the record from second table which is equal or upto 2 minutes after the timestamp on first table.

If I get one...

Distinct probably can be removed

It is 2 minutes (120 seconds)

20 was a typo.