There's not enough data in northwind as it is to properly test this and you must test this like the author suggested using multiple ( optional ) parameters - testing...

Instant RBAR ?????  ( sorry it's monday morning! )

Yup totally agree - I'm far more productive and far better able to think out of the box if I have colleagues ( team )  to work with. I have...

I experimented with this many years ago, if tables are small the benefits are good but on anything else the performance is apalling in terms of i/o and data cache flush....

I must admit I struggled to understand the o/s licensing requirements. As Richard points out, in a ms environment you would already have cals for your users - most companies...

The memory limit for 32bit ent w3k3 ( R2) is now 64Gb. Despite that you're still limited by the sql version too. 64bit sql 2005 std can adress unlimited memory...

I apologise for posting twice - must have been a stutter on my workstation - I still don't have a solution to this so if any readers have any thoughts...

It's part of the sql 2005 install.

agreed - with peer to peer - assumed this was not the case otherwise the Q would not have been asked ^^

You should really read BOL on requirements and restrictions when using replication.

Essentially to alter a replicated table remove it from the publication, make changes , and add it back.

In a nutshell you're correct and the vendor is talking out of his/her *&%$£ , however, if you don't actually need transaction logs and you're not making transaction log backups...

yup - that's what takes me back to my initial comment!!

I was fortunate to be able to take a 6.5  5 day training course on indexes way back, and follow...

a word of warning concerning using a top without an order by? You might not actually get the result you expect.

I find there's often confusion between top and max (...

If you don't need to use transactions or transaction log backups for recovery then switch the database to simple mode. You should find reducing the size of the log device...

any regular shrinking ( or to the same effect growth ) will cause ntfs fragmentation which will degrade performance. Try to balance device size to allow minimal size changes.

Autoshrink should...