Thanks, I tried. Better.

Thank you. Users are not developers, so they can use Excel and Power Pivot to view cubes, and they do need SQL lic (one or the other).

Thank you.

Do you mean they are not holding memories if sessions are sleeping?

add excel file as a linked server,

then

INSERT INTO A_Table

SELECT c1, c2 ...

FROM LinkedExcelName...Sheet1$

WHERE something

i think this article sort of answered my question:

http://sqlinthewild.co.za/index.php/2009/01/09/seek-or-scan/

how do I know at how many records it changes the plan? is there anyway to calculate the threshold?

thanks for your suggestions. understood my best is to post ddl and execution plan, but...

I will go back and double check statistics, fk etc.

i wish i could post execution plan.

my assumption is if the same query runs on the same environment same table structure (one with slightly less records in my case) same...

yes, I have checked the execution plan, statistics and fragmentation, but haven't recreated indexes yet. we have a weekly job taking care of indexes on weekends.

wow! thank you so much.

it worked without double quotes in the second part.

"C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SQL Server\100\DTS\Binn\dtexec.exe" /f "C:\Users\user1\Desktop\package.dtsx"

here is the error:

'C:\Program' is not recognized as an internal or external command,

operable program or batch file.

NULL

the package has script task to execute crystal reports

from ssms

I removed the leading and trailing space, still got the same error.

I thought double quotes would take care of spaces between folder names like "program files".