FIX: Queries With Large Numeric Values May Not Use Appropriate Index

Queries that use numeric values with precision 20 or greater, and scale zero, may not use the correct index. The query may use a different index, or may perform a table scan.

The optimizer converts a numeric value to a float and then gets an arithmetic overflow error, which prevents it from believing that the index is useful.

To resolve this problem, obtain U.S. Service Pack 3 for SQL Server 7.0. To activate this fix, you must enable trace flag 9256. To enable this trace flag each time that SQL Server starts, click the Startup Parameters button in the Server Properties dialog box in Enterprise Manager and add the parameter "-T9256".

Use an index hint in the query to force the use of the desired index.

Microsoft has confirmed this to be a problem in SQL Server 7.0. This problem has been corrected in U.S. Service Pack 3 for Microsoft SQL Server 7.0. For more information, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: For more information, contact your primary support provider.