If...

Fixed query

SELECT prod_name,

vend_name,

prod_price,

quanity

FROM orderitems

...

and what's the error message?

Try

SELECT Systems.SiteNumber AS 'SiteNumber',

PolicyAudit.PolicyID AS 'PolicyID',

CASE WHEN Coverstartdate IS NULL THEN ''

...

No idea, because the error thrown doesn't match the code.

Could be missing begin/end, could be some of those 'other minor changes' you made. Without seeing the code that throws the...

I wouldn't be surprised if...

Key columns only. If an insert/update would make an index key over 900 bytes, the insert update will throw an error and fail.

An index key is limited to 900 bytes. If I'm indexing, then I know that it's safe to put a varchar(10) into an index key, but if that's varchar(8000), then...

Space used + 2 bytes.

As for make everything varchar(8000), why? Is a person's first name going to be thousands of characters long? A city name? A company name? An address...

There's no problems with free space in the DB.

The extra space is there because a reindex creates the new index and then drops the old one. Hence you need free...

You'll need something like extended events or SQLAudit for that.

Not at all. Mostly because the query processor doesn't know what...

I can vouch for that.

Being anxious requires putting on a...

I like to use the FOR XML PATH method. It's detailed here: https://www.simple-talk.com/sql/t-sql-programming/concatenating-row-values-in-transact-sql/

bartedgerton (3/24/2016)

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it's just that the query optimizer isn't smart enough to realize that the INSTEAD OF trigger is properly handling the status ID, so that the insert/update would work fine,...