Can you provide some more information? Such as the minimum query that'll generate the implicit conversion?

Just change the name of the first "Status" field that you are returning to something else. It's not a field from a table, so it's already a name you've...

Some other good sources:

Red-Gate's bookstore - lots of free PDFs full of useful stuff.

Microsoft has a few free e-books too at their %20SQL%20Server]TechNet E-Book Gallery

In my experience, it's often not helped by deadlines being set by people who have no understanding of the field - be that software engineering, infrastructure, building work etc. ...

Sounds horribly familiar (the attitude, that is, not the problem). You have my sympathies and a recommendation to GTFO.

Does your keyboard match what the machine at the other end is expecting?

I've been bitten in the past when I was typing from my proper, sorry, UK keyboard a password...

Good on you, for both parts of that.

Given that the bulk of the time taken to do a backup is I/O, the things to do to speed up the backup are based around reducing that - use...

Ah, the joys of using undocumented stored procedures...

Note that there's a "feature" in the SQL2005 RTM version of that xp too - it won't traverse subdirectories, as I...

The perp still hasn't answered the big "Why" question...

What I've done in the past is something based on the "SQL Overview" solution that David Bird wrote about on SSC[/url] a while ago. This thing polls as many...

On each post, there's a "Report!" button. Click on that on each post that has the offending data, and put in a note saying what you want done...

I have long been an admirer of your shirts, Steve! I have a few similar, but nothing quite as impressive as the ones I normally see you wearing... ...

This might help: SQL Server Aliases[/url].

Are there any locks in evidence on the source or destination tables?

It might be worth trying to reduce the transaction batch size - the number of updates / inserts that...