Yep, you're correct, it's paused.

I tried pausing, and the icon changed to a red square in a white circle. But after a few seconds EM updates it to a vertical...

It means EM failed to connect to that server instance. Either the server has been stopped or the login parameters for the EM registration entry are no longer valid.

>>Can I even use a local variable in the FROM section of a SELECT statement?

No. Search on "Dynamic SQL" and "SQL Injection Attack" for related forum threads & articles.

Why do you need a join ?

This is a simple UNION:

Select MainItems, '' As SubstituteItems, Quantity

From MainItemTable

Union

Select SubstituteItemTable, SubstituteItems, Quantity

From SubstituteItemTable

Order by 1, 2

Did you try my initial suggestion, and strip out the hyphens, forming a standard, non-ambiguous YYYYMMDD date format ?

>> I get an error

You really need to provide the error text.

>>tblItems.Activated)='True'

This is the only suspect part I see. What is the datatype of tblItems.Activated ? Is it really...

There is no difference for simple constant assignments.

Where there is a difference is in trying to capture local copies of global variables. For example, the variables @@ERROR and @@ROWCOUNT change...

No, not the destination table. I'm asking about the columns vg.CalYearID, r.BGCancellationMonthID and r.BGCancellationDayID

Can any of these be NULL when you run this expression ? Also, see the 2...

Are there any potential NULLs involved ?

If yes, do you have different ANSI SET options in place that change how NULLs are dealt with ?

[Edit] - Also, why the hypens...

What is the result of this query on the system tables:

Select * From syscolumns c1

Where id = object_id('prhddt')

And Exists (

  Select 1

  From syscolumns c2

  Where c2.id = object_id('pryhdd')

  And  ...

>>If you can't differentiate then select first one

Same problem. SQL tables are unordered. There is no concept of "first", you need to define the rules that determine which of a...

>>On an aside note, with issues like this today, just imagine when you're developers can use CLR in SQL 2K5 !!!

Indeed. Just picture it: .Net dev - "Hey, I don't...

How do you define "more data" for columns 4 thru 6 ?

Least number of NULLs ? What if there's still a tie, what is your business requirement if you can't...

This is invalid syntax. Correct syntax is

WHERE <ColumnName> IN (values)

If you need to test all 3 coumns a, b anc c against the values, you need 3 separate IN() clauses

WHERE...