CirquedeSQLeil (5/5/2010)
That is likely true - haven't tried. I am just accustomed to asking for the actual execution plan that it seemed the safer route for this too.;-)
Except to get the actual execution plan, the query has to finish. Which in this case is no big deal, but against a very large data set can be quite painful to wait while the same plan is likely generated as the estimated. (Row counts may be off, but the plan itself would likely the same)