Have you applied the following hotfix recently?

KB899587 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/899587/en-us)

When we uninstalled that fix, the linked servers started working again. No idea why at this point.

Since it's a pk, you'll need to drop the constraint, not the index

ALTER TABLE <tablename> DROP CONSTRAINT <pk name>

To see how the query is executing, take a look at the execution plan. It's very hard to look at a query and say how it will execute

From a quick...

However, unless you're 100% sure you know what you're doing, you may make the query even slower.

Take a look at the exec plan, see what indexes are been used, and...

The clustering key refers to the columns that make up the clustered index. Nothing fancier than that.

So, if your clustered index is on the field ClientID, your sample queries would...

{} are curly brackets

EXEC (@SQL)

The concept of row number is a meaningless one. In a table with a clustered index, the clustering key is the only 'identifier' of row location

Try a nonclustered index on...

This sounds familiar...

How much memory is on the server? What service pack of SQL 2005 are you using?

There were some memory-related bugs in SQL 2005 RTM and SP1. If you...

Forgive me for answering the retorical question...

I would guess by having the end result different from what was required, or not been able to work out how to do the...

On the server exam, all the sim questions had a 'reset' option, which set the sim back to how it started. So what I did was to fiddle with each...

I wouldn't bet on it.

I wrote 431 before the sims were added, so this isn't directly related. I did sims in a Server 2003 exam.

I had 2 or 3 sims on active directory, and...

given a choice between those two, go for properly parameterised dynamic SQL using sp_executesql

You can use profiler to create the script file. Open profiler, set all the options you want, including end time, then go to the file menu and select the option...

Do you have indexes on t1.ClientID and on the join columns? If so, are they been used?

The order that the joins and where clause are done in depends on, amoung...