title: How to improve SQL Server cursor performance without rewriting any code?
body: <p>I have a third party application which is based on Microsoft SQL Server and uses cursors even for simple select queries. It look like .exe file for me and I cannot change anything.</p>
  
  <p>My question is: can I improve somehow performance of this application from SQL Server Database Administrator side? Change some SQL Server configuration parameters and etc.</p>
  
  <p>In other word: can a DBA improve cursor performance without changing source codes of the application?</p>
  
  <p>Some more information and examples.</p>
  
  <p>I have a very simple query like this (I got it from SQL traces).</p>
  
  <pre><code>select id, name from my_table
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>there are indexes for <code>id</code> and <code>name</code> columns. <code>my_table</code> has 700 000 records.</p>
  
  <p>If I run it in SQL Server Management Studio it returns first results immediately and fetch all results in 7 seconds.</p>
  
  <p>But this third party application returns first results only after 7 seconds. I compared SQL traces and I found that this third party application use cursor to run this simple query and just return data to the grid. I cannot do much with indexes and etc for this simple example, execution plan is perfect and etc.</p>