Well here goes my thoughts.

I think the site and the contests work really well at the moment because it hasn't got too huge. I was really into expertsexchange about 3...

I would concur

What is the selectivity of the accountNoToDebit column, adding an index to this may help.

Other options are a covering index on this column and the date.

The more complex...

I would concur

What is the selectivity of the accountNoToDebit column, adding an index to this may help.

Simon Sabin

Co-author of SQL Server 2000 XML Distilled

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/1904347088

Have had this numerous times and one cause could be a known feature with parallisma and large amounts of data.

With large amounts of data the cost gets above the...

Have a look at

http://www.sqlservercentral.com/scripts/contributions/528.asp

Simon Sabin

Co-author of SQL Server 2000 XML Distilled

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/1904347088

Its not really solving the problem, an upgrade might make things run faster and thus locks are not held for as long but if your website gets mroe usage you...

Have you changed the sa password from the value in the script of SA

Simon Sabin

Co-author of SQL Server 2000 XML Distilled

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/1904347088

Could change the message in sysmessages ?

Simon Sabin

Co-author of SQL Server 2000 XML Distilled

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/1904347088

The other aspect to be aware is that NULL + 'hello world' = NULL in SQL 7 on wards without ansi nulls off

Simon Sabin

Co-author of SQL Server 2000 XML Distilled

I believe thats the only way, without doing some sp_Oa stuff

Simon Sabin

Co-author of SQL Server 2000 XML Distilled

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/1904347088

Updates are bad, if you are to alter large amounts of data, renaming the table, creating the new one and then copying the data back in is the quickest way...

The problem with using MIN is that you could end up with the wrong test for the grade.

Name TestNo Grade

joe 3 A

joe 2 B

joe 1 C

With this data you would...

A few comments questions.

How big are the three tables?

Do you have an index on Amex.ReportDate and Prof.ReportDate ?

You have no relation between your sub query and the main query so...

Using SQL Lite Speed will be good for log shipping as the files are compressed by about 90%

Simon Sabin

Co-author of SQL Server 2000 XML Distilled

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/1904347088

Retention is something you will need to consider. If space is an issue then you can use sqllitespeed, which compresses the backups (and can encrypt) saw a demo last week...