You can only use the CTE in the statement subsequent to it's definition. You can use it more than once within that statement but you can't use it in two...

We definately give the developers a copy of SSMS. In fact, they've got a Development server on their machines. They can't build structures into the dev servers, but we encourage...

That is an odd one. I use "run as" almost daily and haven't run into an issue. I don't have encrypted data. Maybe that's the difference.

Does it pull them all over when you expand the file list? I definately see a slow down when I open the error logs themselves, but I've not run into...

I've never heard of this one. Go to connect.microsoft.com. You can search for the bug there to see if anyone else has hit it. If not, you can report it.

I...

OK. It only bothers me when I read a stinky article that I want to slam No big deal. I was just curious really.

Don't put the cluster on the GUID.

Experimentation is the key. Just a swag, put the cluster on the date column and then, depending on the manner in which the...

Since you're doing deletes, you're probably going to get some blocking no matter what you do. First off, I'd look into eliminating the WHERE IN & WHERE NOT IN queries....

Check this knowledge base article on MSDN:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/321185

SELECT  SERVERPROPERTY('productversion'), SERVERPROPERTY ('productlevel'), SERVERPROPERTY ('edition')

Some indication of the code being called would help.

Hard topic to quantify. The one point I'd add is that mediocre or not, you basically have people falling roughly into two groups. Those that have a year or two...

Yow! What a question. Well, everyone has their own opinions. What's more, every situation is a little different. I'm working on an article right now for Simple-Talk on just this...

I'm sorry, I'm not sure. I just did the same thing you described and it worked fine.

Then you sir, are a gentleman and a scholar. I'm neither. Pass the hammer please.

sp_who2 is a simple way to see which processes are running. It shows the SPID. You can use that to kill a process.

I'm not sure if this is the answer...