How do you lock tables in SQL Server 2005, and should I even do it?

Question

This one will take some explaining. What I\'ve done is create a specific custom message queue in SQL Server 2005. I have a table with messages that contain timestamps for both a

Answer 1

Should you really be processing things one-by-one? Shouldn't you just have SQL Server acknowledge all unacknowledged messages with todays date and return them? (all also in a transaction of course)