Its pretty hard to help you if you don't tell us what you are trying to do.  If you need help with the DELETE syntax, either find DELETE in BOL,...

Your title of 'deadlock' is a bit misleading.  You are getting lock timeout messages due to blocking whick is not the same thing as a deadlock.  You need to do...

Paul,

Creating a linked server would be the SQL Server equivalent to the Oracle DB link.  You can get more info on this from BOL under...

You may get a bit more help if you could post some sample data as well as a sample result set.  Full table DDL couldn't hurt either. 

If it doesn't matter which one, just throw a MIN/MAX group by on the whole thing:

SELECT t1.ColA,

    MIN(t1.ColIDs) as ColIDs,

    t1.ColDescription

FROM @tbl t1

    INNER JOIN (

                SELECT ColA,

                    MIN(dbo.Occurs(';',ColIDs)) as...

You may have to play around with it, but this should work (or at least get you started):

SELECT t1.ColA,

    t1.ColIDs,

    t1.ColDescription

FROM @tbl t1

    INNER JOIN (

                SELECT ColA,

                    MIN(dbo.Occurs(';',ColIDs)) as...

Well, what if 2 or more rows have the same number of occurances?

So your function returns a scalar value and not a table?  If so, can you post your split function.

Hi Paul.  First of all, SQL Server 7.0 is not SQL Server 2005.  It is the version prior to SQL Server 2000.  DTS is not just for warehousing data and...

This would be handled real easy with a split function.  Search SSC for dbo.split.  Another option would be to create your own UDF to read through your ColIDs value one...

The best solution for replacing Cursors is by using SET based logic.  While you may see some performance gains by using temp tables or table variables with while loops, these...

Well, that's kind of a wide open question.  Much of what we need to effectively tweak these queries has been omitted from your post.  What does the query plan look...

"in dos command there no switch for renaming a worksheet "

A worksheet isn't any different from any other file on the file system.  Use REN/RENAME.

From DOS help -

C:\> REN...

Well, what exactly are you trying to do?  I see this has to do with replication, but where are you in the setup?  Is this a first attempt between servers...

Your description is a bit confusing Tim.  Can you post the DDL for both tables, sample data, and an example of your desired results.