Having modified that script a bit, and run it on my server - the time was 23.078 secs. Improved, certainly, but not better.

SET NOCOUNT ON

declare @query varchar(100), @id int

DECLARE @muchWorseProblem TABLE (ID int primary key clustered)

INSERT INTO @muchWorseProblem (ID)

select top 100000 ID from [tblLogTransactions]

declare @id2 int;

declare @i int;

set @i = 0;

while 1=1

begin

select top 1 @id2 = ID from @muchWorseProblem

if @id2 is null

break;

select @query = 'declare @i int; set @i = ' + convert(varchar,@id2)

exec(@query)

delete from @muchWorseProblem where id = @id2

set @id2 = null

end

The quickest I could get it to go was the following, which does come in slightly quicker than a cursor, at 10.703 secs:

SET NOCOUNT ON

declare @query varchar(100), @id int, @rowNum int

DECLARE @muchWorseProblem TABLE (RowNum int IDENTITY(1, 1) primary key clustered, ID int)

INSERT INTO @muchWorseProblem (ID)

select top 100000 ID from [tblLogTransactions]

declare @maxRowNum int

SELECT @maxRowNum = MAX(RowNum) FROM @muchWorseProblem

declare @i int;

set @i = 1;

while @i <= @maxRowNum

begin

select @id = ID from @muchWorseProblem WHERE rowNum = @i

select @query = 'declare @i int; set @i = ' + convert(varchar,@id)

exec(@query)

set @i = @i + 1

end