If you just need a count, replace the column identifier (Quantity) with just the number 1:

...THEN 1 ELSE 0 END

It's easier (and better distributed) to do this in VB, too...

CREATE...

Yes, if you wish to allow SQL Server the maximum amount of memory and you have more than 4GB of memory, you will need to use AWE.

That is not the case.  You don't give memory to SQL Server; it takes it. 

There are no advantages to setting minimum memory on...

This really should be done on the front-end; it would be easy with a report writer that supports cross-tab reports (and most do).  There are also some third-party utilities available...

To let SQL Server use the most memory when you have 4GB, you'll need at the Enterprise Edition of SQL Server and an OS (Windows 2003 or Windows 2000 Advanced)...

It's documented in BOL under API Server Cursors.

Does this help?

http://support.microsoft.com/?id=186133

That sounds like "parameter sniffing" with atypical values.  Does your stored procedure have defaults (like null) for its parameters?

That means the operation is being performed in parallel; i.e. the execution has been split into multiple threads being processed in parallel by multiple processors.

Tempdb cannot be set to auto shrink (at least not in SQL Server 2000), so that's definitely not the best setting. 

All databases...

You will want to used the Simple or Bulk-Logged recovery model to avoid the overhead of tran logging.  The simplest bulk-logged operation would be a SELECT * INTO TableB FROM...

Not sure what your data type or collation is but, assuming it's varchar(10) and the default collation for US, then try:

SELECT [User], CAST(Subject AS varchar(10)) COLLATE SQL_Latin1_General_CP1_CS_AS

FROM TestTable

GROUP BY [User], CAST(Subject...

With a sophisticated array controller (certainly including SANs), one normally chooses Basic and uses the vendor's utilities to manage the dynamic aspects of the storage.

Storport drivers should perform better than...

CASE WHEN Field LIKE '%[^0-9]%' THEN 0 ELSE CAST(Field AS numeric) END

Aha!  So the user name (login name, screen name, full name; whatever you decide to call it) is no longer a unique identifier.  It's now just a free field (Full...