>With the Express version of SQL Server, are deleted records in the tables handled the same way they are in VFP? By that I mean, does a deleted record remain in the table until it is PACKED or flushed by some other means? If yes, what means would that be?
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>Also, when a table is managed via a web interface and accumulates deleted records fairly quickly, what techniques are commonly used to flush the deleted records? Is there a way to easily automate this so administrator functions are minimized and the database doesn't need to be taken off line? (This question pertains to both types of databases, SQL and VFP)
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>Thanks

Bill answered your first question. As to the second, 'it depends'. Our system incurrs a lot of inserts deletes and our data model is deep (great-great grandchildren). We found that deletes were causing contention issues. We adopted the FoxPro approach by adding a column for deleted. Our SP filter on this column. We run a nightly scheduled batch job to perform the 'pack'. Our approach should not be required for a simpler datamodel.