Duplicate Delete Timeout

Hi All,

I am trying to delete the duplicates from a table, but keep 1 of the records.

Here is my query which works on smaller tables <2000 records, but the query either timeouts or just runs and runs on larger tables >50,000 and >150,000.


DELETE
FROM Table1
WHERE Table1.ID IN

/* LIST 1 - all rows that have duplicates*/
(SELECT F.ID
FROM Table1 AS F
WHERE EXISTS ( SELECT computerName, programName, version, publisher, Count(ID)
FROM Table1
WHERE Table1.computerName = F.computerName
AND Table1.programName = F.programName
AND Table1.version = F.version
AND Table1.publisher = F.publisher
GROUP BY Table1.computerName, Table1.programName, Table1.version, Table1.publisher
HAVING Count(Table1.ID) > 1))
AND Table1.ID NOT IN

/* LIST 2 - one row from each set of duplicate*/
(SELECT Min(ID)
FROM Table1 AS F
WHERE EXISTS ( SELECT computerName, programName, version, publisher, Count(ID)
FROM Table1
WHERE Table1.computerName = F.computerName
AND Table1.programName = F.programName
AND Table1.version = F.version
AND Table1.publisher = F.publisher
GROUP BY Table1.computerName, Table1.programName, Table1.version, Table1.publisher
HAVING Count(Table1.ID) > 1)
GROUP BY computerName, programName, version, publisher);

TABLE STRUCTURE::
ID computerName programName version publisher installDate
1 COMP1Microsoft .NET Framework 1.11.1.4322Microsoft 20050216
2 COMP1Windows XP Hotfix - KB89178120050110.17Microsoft NULL
3 COMP1Windows Media Player 10 NULL NULL NULL
4 COMP1Microsoft .NET Framework 1.11.1.4322Microsoft 02/16/2005

The duplicate records i am trying to delete are not truly duplicates, each record has a unique ID and install dates could vary. I am trying to identify duplicate records as identical (computerName + programName + version + publisher) See records 1 and 4 in table structure above... i dont care which of the duplicates is kept, as long as 1 is kept.

What I am looking for is either a completely new query which maybe optimized to run on a larger scale table or maybe just a performance tweak to my exisitng query??

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks.