Force Table Scan Syntax
SELECT memberID, fname, lname
FROM members WITH (INDEX(0))
WHERE dept_cd = 100


SELECT dept_name, memberID, fname, lname
FROM members WITH (INDEX(0))
,department WITH (INDEX(0))
WHERE members.dept_cd = department.dept_cd


By the way, some DBAs are not aware of this (force table scan). I’m not a DBA but I worked on a lot of performance optimization projects before and has always been working with our DBAs. Their usual advice is to use the index which is correct in most cases. However, I think some of our queries should have use a force table scan to be more efficient.

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Starting at SQL Server 2000, you can use the following query.

SELECT SERVERPROPERTY('productversion'), SERVERPROPERTY ('productlevel'), SERVERPROPERTY ('edition')

The above query is applicable for SQL Server 2000, SQL Server 2005 and SQL Server 2008. For SQL Server 7 and SQL Server 6.5 series. The code below should be used.

SELECT @@VERSION

If you are not sure what version of SQL Server you have, use the second query. It still works as it isn’t deprecated yet. The new version is handy if you need to get the details programmatically.