"Timeout expired" in SQL Server 2005

If you are running a query that needs to make changes to quite a few rows within a database (in my case 8700 rows). You might get an error exception pop up which says the following:

"Timeout expired.  The timeout period elapsed prior to completion of the operation or the server is not responding."

After some investigating I found that there are two ways to overcome this error:

1. Use Database Engine Query (or formally known as Query Analyser) to run your query instead of using SQL Panel in table view. I think that the SQL Query panel within table view is only used for smaller query operations. Thats just my guess because it didn't work for me. When using Database Engine query there is pretty much no limit to the amount of data you need.

2. Override connection timeout in SQL Server Options:

I found an option to change the timeout limit in the least place I expected. Under the "Designers" selection within SQL Server Options you will be able to change the timeout amount. But you cannot uncheck the override amount, you will have to specify the amount of seconds you require.