Peso, I think that I was able to modify your code to get what I need. We were using SQL 7, so long that I forget about the new...

Just a little more background on this, the EmpBenefits table has many records for many different people. I need to look for the highest level record for a each...

I have solved this, but I am an not sure why. If I add the column EmpBen.TrackingID it runs fast and the plan is differnent, it uses a bunch...

Here is the new plan.

The plan changed slightly, for the PersonalData Index Scan it is now using the new index instead of a dta_ index. It is still not doing a RID lookup.

Adding the '0 Basic' did not slow down the fast one.

That did not work, same plan. The EmpBenefits table is the big one, almost 1.3 million rows. PersonalData & Census are smaller, ~125000 rows and ~50000 rows.

Here are the plans. remove the .txt

Thnanks, Brian

I know it does not make sense. I am not using any limiting factor. Here is the query:

-- Select individual columns

SELECT LName, FName, Address1, Address2, City, [State], Zip,...

It seems to be fairly consistent, usually select * is faster, but I usually...