2 million records is not large in SQL server (although it may be in Access) so it has got to be your query. As suggested by others add some indexes and try optimising your query. Never underestimate the power of human stupidity RAH

kshincsk wrote: I found just the perfect piece of code. Great. Yet another Copy'N'Paste programmer... A guide to posting questions on CodeProject[^] Dave Kreskowiak Microsoft MVP Visual Developer - Visual Basic      2006, 2007, 2008

Backup and Restore is the best option. Back your db up, copy the file to the server and restore it from there. Job done. In many places they use something like LiteSpeed or Red Gate's SqlBackup for this. Regards, Rob Philpott.

Why on earth are you writing code in VB6 ? Christian Graus Driven to the arms of OSX by Vista.

It is not too bad for a first message. You even managed to publish formatted code, something that is rare in the VB forum for unknown reasons. [EDIT]Breaking up your SQL statement to reduce the source width would have made things more readable though...[/EDIT] FYI: you can still edit your message, after you have posted it. And you can reply to it if you want to add information. There is no need to start a new thread at all, keep it all together, that is easier to all of us. :) Luc Pattyn [Forum Guidelines] [My Articles] Fixturized forever. :confused:

That's all well and good, but what if a second user runs the same query and it shows up exactly between the time user number 1 runs that query, and then runs the query to change the flag to 'N'? Trust me, it IS going to happen. Flags like this just don't work in a multiuser environment. If the operation requires more than a single step (query) to "checkout" an ID, you will end up with this problem. Maybe not today, maybe not next week, but even a year from now, it's bound to show up. The chances of it happening also increase with the inevitable increase in the number of users using this database. A guide to posting questions on CodeProject[^] Dave Kreskowiak Microsoft MVP Visual Developer - Visual Basic      2006, 2007, 2008