SQL Need help joining tables

Question

I have a select SQL query which is really big and it should be pulling in about 5000 records. But when I use the JOIN It cuts the number of records to say 1000 because it only shows records where a value exists on the joined value, how would I go about pulling all records no matter whether the Join finds that a value exists or NOT?

Answer 1

Left outer join : MSDN Outer Joins

Answer 2

Instead of performing an inner join, perform a left outer join