Addressing the first question, if you need to take several rows grouped by certain criteria with the other column with max value you can do something like this:
var query =
from u1 in table
join u2 in (
from u in table
group u by u.GroupId into g
select new { GroupId = g.Key, MaxStatus = g.Max(x => x.Status) }
) on new { u1.GroupId, u1.Status } equals new { u2.GroupId, Status = u2.MaxStatus}
select u1;