SQL 2000 isn't supported any longer, get SQL 2012 and use that.

We're volunteers here, we post in our spare time. Asking for someone to remote into your machine is...

pl/sql is set-based...

This is a Microsoft SQL Server site, not a generic, any database engine site. Specifically this forum is for Microsoft SQL Server 2008. We're SQL Server people here, not Oracle...

Err.. why...

Why would you use...

To be honest, I doubt they'll be required everywhere anytime in the next 8-10 years. Required in more and more places around new features, yes. Required everywhere, well, we still...

A SQL Server database backup. So from SQL Server Management Studio, right click the database Tasks-> Backup. Copy the backup file that's created over to your other machine and restore...

No effect. As far as an index is concerned, null is just another value.

You need to tune the queries, perhaps add indexes (and btw, 500000 rows is tiny)

http://www.simple-talk.com/sql/performance/finding-the-causes-of-poor-performance-in-sql-server,-part-1/

http://www.simple-talk.com/sql/performance/finding-the-causes-of-poor-performance-in-sql-server,-part-2/

With the IF UPDATE construct that Sean gave you. The trigger will still run, but the IF will return false and hence the code inside won't run.

SQL should not generally run as local system, it should run under a minimal privileged domain account.

You got the error because SQL did not have permission on the folder with...

Increasing complexity of the language. SQL is...

Triggers (any triggers) aren't recursive. AFTER triggers can be made recursive by turning the database option on (though I haven't seen many cases where that's a good idea)