Use MAX for most recent.

Presumably there is a primary key that ties all these optional columns together?

Could you use something like this:

declare @cmd varchar(8000)

set @cmd = 'SELECT * INTO ' + <new table> +...

One issue I've run into that caused wild variations in sp execution times was when developers used optional parameters with queries like

select ... from ...

where UserID = @User or @User...

I think you're confusing clustered servers (for fault-tolerance) with federated servers (for performance).

Quote from BOL:

"SQL Server 2000 does not support a load-balancing form of clustering for building a database services...

I've been annoyed in the past by questions or answers I thought were misleading, but this isn't one of them.  If you turned this into a multiple choice you'd give...

The easiest way was in the first reply.  In Enterprise Manager, right-click on a stored procedure and select All Tasks - Generate SQL Script.  Click the Show All button and...

The link in the previous post is a very good discussion of composite indexes, to which I would add their discussion of clustered indexes.

http://www.sql-server-performance.com/clustered_indexes.asp

Just ignore the one paragraph that...

You say they don't show up, but you don't say you're getting any errors.  Are you sure you aren't copying them to the wrong database?

The previous two posts are excellent...

You can simplify this by using the ActiveX task to merely set the value of another global variable to the desired query, followed by a Dynamic Properties task to set...

A new install will be cleaner than an upgrade.

It gives you an excuse to ask for a new server.  (How old is that 7.0 server, anyway?)

The old server is still...

Watch out for multi-row operations in triggers.

CREATE TRIGGER trNumber

ON tbl

FOR INSERT, UPDATE

AS

UPDATE t SET Number = i.ID

FROM tbl t

INNER JOIN inserted i ON t.pk = i.pk

WHERE i.Number IS NULL

The reply from AKM is probably what you're looking for, unless you only wanted to suppress the second row.  If you always want the first row returned but the second...

If you have room for two copies of the data, I think this might run faster than the self-join and DELETE method.

First import the data into a staging table.

Then create...

The solution posted works for the sample data given, but assumes the top manager is one of the employees in the original search set.  What if your employee org chart...

I would be interested in the source code as freeware.  I'd want source code because there's usually some reason to tinker with a tool like that to customize it to...