It might be not needed if it isn't visible to the outside world, but every service pack fixes some bugs.

although not a security tester, microsoft released a tool to report how properly your sql server is configured.

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=B352EB1F-D3CA-44EE-893E-9E07339C1F22&displaylang=en

1)It is very likely your network is congusted, because your query launched locally just runs fine.

Any hubs remaining? Working on a WAN,dial-up?

Returning a very large dataset ?

ps Sure that SET...

we use the following connection string in DAO & access 97

"ODBC;DRIVER=SQL SERVER;Description=SQLServer;SERVER=10.0.5.100;UID=user;PWD=user2;DATABASE=master;Network=DBMSSOCN;Address=10.0.5.100,1433;APP=BT

I would recommend an extra 1 GB as it is quite cheap these days.

Are the two queries related to each other?

Is the first a long running one?

What edition is your sql server?

If it is a standard edition, it will maximum use 2 gb.

With the /3gb switch, the system will have 1 gb, sql server the 2...

are you working with DAO or ADO in Access?

I'm almost certain that DAO only supports one set of data returned

SQL Stripes? What is it?

Hello,

I've got no experience with clusters yet.

But there is an article in MS knowlegdebase that discusses how msdtc should be configured on a win 2003 cluster

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;301600

perhaps you need this...

Inserting in a table yields no order (like throwing stuff all in a big bag)

Order is done via your query/stored procedure ...

On what OS are the sql servers operating?

There might be some issue with the new features (rpc security) msdtc got with windows 2003.

According to this site, it is because sqlserver service...

On what OS & servicepack is your SQL-server (servicepack?) running?