Thanks for the reply Ben,

Does this mean that I can set up the web portion without worrying about the licensing? I was under the impression that that was part...

well.. i've been searching some more since my post and have found some info about the licensing question..(narrows my options considerably)

From the SQL Server 2005 Pricing and Licensing White paper...

fantastic!

thanks Michael.

I think the answer to this question really enforces and reminds me of the fact that tables are sets and can be replaced by sets when needed.

thanks again

will

maybe i just need to make a temp table with the max values of state and then inner join it instead of the full state table..

sorry.. thinking out loud

i guess it is worth mentioning that The result set above is pretty much exactly what i want only i need to get rid of the rows that have rows...

well.. i guess it would be a better way, but that isn't why i need it. the other query that does work is really performing a totally different task. ...

thanks..

i found a similarly worded answer in the msdn documentation while waiting for a reply.

I may very well be coming back for more help but i first have to apply...

Found the problem...

the php mssql extension has some setting in the php.ini file.

had to extend the settings below

- mssql.textlimit = 145536 (max is 2 million something characters)

- mssql.textsize = 145536...

ok.. here is a small update.

I updated the field using the currently stored string copied twice into a text query.

(i.e. text size was twice the currently stored data)

and it...