Oh I'm just getting started here.

andyb: Whats your solution?

Your comments have been non constructive and have not answered the origional post.

My solution works, no...

andyb

There is a difference between asking for help and having someone do your work for you.

One thing that everyone should learn is how to phrase a question with sufficient detail...

Unless you mean to not use the MAX function

and use something like;

DECLARE @NEXTID

SELECT @NEXTID = (SELECT TOP 1 [id_Column] FROM <table> ORDER BY [id_Column] DESC) + 1

to get the value.

Sounds like...

If this is a serious question you need to reword it and give more detail.

There is not enough information here, as it stands you have not stated any context to...

Due to the fact that having duplicate records within a relational database means somebody somewhere had a stupid attack and created a system without checks and constraints to prevent it...

I find this question extremely annoying.

When you want to switch to OUTER JOIN for testing purposes JOIN syntax wins out right.

Regards

"Fix the problem, not the blame!"