The issue I'm seeing is that Nested Loop operator, NodeId = 17, right before the Hash Match, NodeId = 16, that's performing the aggregation. Two issues there, first, it's using...

Buck Woody addressed this question in a recent blog post:

http://blogs.msdn.com/buckwoody/archive/2008/10/20/erd-designer.aspx

I got that link from our local Microsoft rep. I'm assuming it's on the RSN schedule (Real Soon Now).

If you don't have a clustered index on the table, I'd at least put one on that ID column. After that, take a look at the execution plans to determine...

There are exceptions, but by and large, every table should have a clustered index. The nonclustered indexes have to use RID to track down the data, which is generally not...

I'm not aware of a resource for making these types of decisions except for common sense and experience. You could go to a consulting firm or bounce the ideas off...

What about the Dudettes?

Anyway, short of installing it & checking the version, I'm not sure what you could do.

And while I'm on it, I've run Powershell scripts against SQL Server 2008 before. I created a silly little test script for placing a load on a copy of AdventureWorks...

It looks like it did precisely what you told it to. It limited the names to where they did not equal 'Name1' and it showed those for values not...

Or

SELECT f.footballer_name

,a.goals_scored

FROM football.table f

JOIN another.table a

ON f.footballer_name = a.footballer_name

WHERE f.mins_played > 300

The problem you defined is a classic and simple JOIN between two tables.

It's just a scan against a heap? You won't see any real improvements there until you change the situation, adding a clustered index, or an index, period. 7.0 might just...

Nothing free that I'm aware of. SQL Prompt is pretty inexpensive though. It's got a real return on investment with the speed you can realize in writing TSQL code. You...

In general, there are exceptions, you should have a clustered index on each table. You only get one and it affects how the data is stored, not just how it's...

Are the query plans different?

My guess, and this is just a guess, the optimizer spends a little less time figuring out the ANSI 92 syntax than it does the ANSI...

Did you get errors or anything? I had a heck of a time installing the 2008 version of AdventureWorks until I had file streaming installed & configured.