Is there a syntax that will allow me to exclude certain columns versus explicitly stating every column that I want?

SSMS has two handy tricks that help with this.

First you can right-click a table and script it as SELECT:

Second you can drag the Columns "folder" underneath the table over to the query window to paste a column-delimited list of columns:

Then once you have all the columns, delete the ones you don't want.

David

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David http://blogs.msdn.com/b/dbrowne/