Try using SET SHOWPLAN_TEXT ON - it will make the output less verbose an easier to interpret.

One immediate observation is:

Clustered Index Scan

Ideally you'd like to see an index seek. Are...

What is the query execution plan ? (Paste the SQL into Query Analyser and hit CTRL-L)

Are any of the columns being updated foreign keys to other tables ?

Are there any triggers...

Aren't you missing a backward slash ?

set @cmd = '"D:\7ZIP\7z.exe"

Also, what user is this running under when you execute from query analyser ? Perhaps you don't have the user...

The '+' operator performs string concatenation.

The CROSS JOIN join operator gives you the required resultset.

SELECT t1.PhysicalName + t2.PhysicalName

FROM YourConfigTable As t1

CROSS JOIN YourConfigTable As t2

WHERE t1.LogicalName = 'Working Directory'

AND   t2.LogicalName =...

If you have no control over the comma-separated list coming from the front-end, then you best bet is to transform it into an XML document (easier than it sounds) and...

Option B (inner Joins) will kick the pants of option A performance wise. Option A should be avoided at all costs - you might as well use a cursor because...

DISTINCT syntax does not use parentheses. This should work:

SELECT DISTINCT col1,col2,col3

INTO DeDupedTable

FROM tableA

Put the results into 1 of 3 temporary table. Once complete, dump the tables to the filesystem using BCP or DTS.

Are you sure you need cursors ?

See this recent, similar thread:

http://www.sqlservercentral.com/forums/shwmessage.aspx?forumid=8&messageid=282795

Distinct works across all the columns in the result set. If you want unique col1 values, but also want col2 & col3 in your resultset,...

>>To do this you could run something like

>>Select ssn, Min(LastName) as LastName, Min(FirstName) as First Name, Min(DOB) as DOB

I've seen this done often to eliminate dupes and it is...

Sorry, didn't notice you'd already aliased the column as FullName:

-- Derived table to build full name for each id

INNER JOIN

 (SELECT    id, firstname + ' ' + lastname AS CreatorName

  FROM         ...

MIN() and MAX() aggregates work with varchar, so the concept is no different.

IF is for control flow, it is not valid syntax to use it within a SELECT statement.

Use CASE ... WHEN instead:

CASE

WHEN @ExtendedPrice != '0' THEN CONVERT(money, [GrossMargin]/[ExtendedPrice]) 

-- what happens...

Read about SQL aggregates and GROUP BY:

SELECT da_id, MIN(acct_num) As LowestAcctNum

FROM #temp

GROUP BY da_id

>>though I am using DISTINCT for SSN still am getting repeated

You are missing the point. DISTINCT does not work on simply 1 column. It works across all columns in the...