What is the best way to get rid of duplicate entries in a
large database?
The best way is to provide a unique index on the table so they don't
get added in the first place!
Failing that, create a new empty table with a unique Index on the set
of fields which constitutes a duplicate; run an Append query to
migrate the data from the table contining the dups into the new table.
You'll get a warning message that <X records were not added due to key
violations> - those are the dups.
If, however, you have other tables related to this table, you may be
in trouble! You'll need to decide which duplicate you'll be keeping
and change the foreign key fields in the related tables to point to
the record being kept. This can be difficult to do automatically.
