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Editorial Team
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Asked: 2026-05-27T19:49:03+00:00

I have a table about 10 million rows. We just imported it from another

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I have a table about 10 million rows. We just imported it from another database with SQL Server Management Studio. It creates table but without identity and primary key on primary key column.

I could add the primary key but couldn’t add identity. It’s all the time timing out when I’m doing it in designer. Even I set time out settings to 0.

I need to create probably another column set primary key and identity, copy data from old, delete old column and rename new one.

Can anyone show me what will be the best way to do it for such big tables, without additional overheating?

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  1. Editorial Team

    Okay. I was able to add identity to the existing primary column with 10 million records. Took me about 30 mins.

    The steps:

    1. Change database to single user mode (to make sure no other connections to databse, can cause lock)

    2. Open table in designer mode

    3. Make change. Do not save

    4. Click Generate Change Script button (usually on the left right above the Object Explorer)

    5. Copy generated script
    6. Close designer window (you can run only one instance at the time)
    7. Open new window

    8. Execute script

    9. Done. Now your column has identity 🙂

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