If you are not temporary table adverse...

set nocount on

select col1, col2, col3, IDENTITY(int,1,1) as [Index]

from some_table

order by col1, col2, col3

into #temp

set nocount off

select * from #temp

drop table #temp

It is easy...

Without the subquery...

set nocount on

-- setting up base data

declare @a table (a char(2), b char(2), c char(2))

insert into @a values ('a1', 'b2', 'b3')

insert into

I would suggest using inner joins. Also, way use an alias if it is the same as the table name?

Would not casting to an int will result in grouping by the 24 hour period from noon to noon, not midnight to midnight?

I suppose you could pick the...

There is also sp_helplogins.

FYI. A bit column takes at least 1 byte. However, SQL Server will store up to 8 bit columns in the same byte. So, 52 state bit...

I never use unicode except when using sp_executesql because the @stmt and @params parameters. I'd not use it then, but it seems to require it.

See "Recovery Interval Option" in BOL and the contained links. The documentation states that a checkpoint does not depend on time, but depends on how many records are in...

We use such a "execute" role also. We also use only role based security so that we can move objects into production with object permissions (no login worries). ...

Some mention of this is at http://www.microsoft.com/technet/treeview/default.asp?url=/technet/itcommunity/chats/trans/SQL/sql0513.asp. There they recommend a fixed size. Also interesting is the MemToLeave question. BOL describes a –g startup option to control the...

I remember reading a post with a comment about a difference between using a proc input parameter versus a local variable in a case like this. For some reason,...

If you can't touch the table structure, a loop using SET ROWCOUNT will limit the number of records deleted. Perhaps a cursor with using a select something like

SELECT...

How about using a function?

The identity increment can't be easily undone because another connection doing inserts into the same table might be affected.

A COMMIT or ROLLBACK will not affect the next identity value to...

The time to do most math calculations is small compared to network IO. I'd be very surprised if you could see much difference. An index on a wide...