SQL Windowing Functions: Are the results ordered

This appears to be a long standing issue that keeps resurfacing in one form or another and is still present in SQL Server 2012.

Some posts discussing it are

• Performance Tuning 101 - 2005
• Plan Regression with Sequence Projections - 2008 R2 @Paul White
• Common Table Expressions (CTEs), Window Functions, and Views - 2012 @Jonathan Kehayias
• The Problem with Window Functions and Views

All current versions of SQL Server up to and including 2012 are not able to push the filter on a partitioning group past the sequence project for a parameterised predicate except if option(recompile) is used (if 2008+).

An alternative to the recompile hint would be to rewrite the query to use a parameterised inline TVF as suggested by @a1ex07)

You're going to have to make your application not put the ORDER BY inside the subquery (maybe it has an option to not use a needless subquery in the first place). As you've already discovered, this syntax is not supported in SQL Server without TOP. And with TOP, unless you want to leave some rows out, using TOP 100 PERCENT is going to render the ORDER BY optimized away anyway.

And in Oracle and PostGres, just because the syntax is supported, does not mean it is obeyed. And just because you observe it as being obeyed in some scenario, does not mean that it will continue to be obeyed as new versions come out or with subtle changes to your data, statistics, the query itself, or the environment.

I can assure you that, without a doubt, if you want a guarantee about order, you need to put the ORDER BY on the outermost query. This should be a doctrine you hold close no matter what platform you're using.

You are asking for a link that officially states that something is not supported. This is like looking in your car owner's manual for an official statement that your car cannot fly.