most informative... thank to all!! Once my additional hardware is here I'll start the implementation, I'm sure I'll be posting again.

John

Thanks for all the posts and information. It's been very informative. After more experimenting, the NOT EXISTS runs about 8 times faster on average. Seems the larger the number of...

Thanks so much Jonathan. The NOT EXISTS worked great... performance probably 10 times faster and now acceptable.

Are you sure that it is one of the tables causing the problem? I've ran into this many times, but never with a table.

I had started using them one time in a table and then I realized I couldn't do a 'group by' on a bit field... so I changed them to tinyint....

Yes, I can use a CASE statement and that's a good idea. The impression I'm getting now is that I need to address the sql update statement(s). When I initially...

This table is in use 24/7 and dropping the index obviously requires rebuilding the index which in the past takes about 10 minutes and during which time, the view is...

As hard as I've tried to eliminate the temptable I have not been successful. Couple of things hinder it:

1)the joins become so extensive that performance is killed.

2)sorts on computed...

Crappy: Thanks for the datetime suggestion. I think there's a saying... sometimes, one can't see the forest....

Mark: this makes sense, I especially like the 'averaging' aspect of it...

Thanks for all the input. I don't think I expressed my problem very well. Perhaps I should have asked... 'What is the best way to initiate a VB program on...

I think I found the problem. Seems you cannot use EXEC to work with the data type Table.

I've tried simple examples and it works fine without using EXEC but whenever...

I found this very interesting as it's a problem I'm facing. Just thought it important to note that in order to use the /3GB swith, you must be running Windows...