I'll be there, morning to evening, both days (26th and 27th) responsible for an area we have called "Rincón técnico de SQL Server" (SQL Server Technical Corner) where "Ask The Expert" sessions will be running virtually non...

Say you are one of those users who have been using SQL Server since 6.x days. And say you remember that in those versions there was the possibility to backup or restore a single table. Let's try hard to imagine your memory is good enough to be able to...

In red I highlighted the changes I've introduced to explain what was wrong in the original version of A tale about solving "Cannot generate SSPI context" and later "[DBNETLIB][ConnectionRead(recv()).] General network error. Check your network...

I had a customer who was receiving the "Cannot generate SSPI context error" when one, and only one, of his users with a specific domain account tried to log into a SQL Server 2005 using TCP network library and Windows Authentication. It ended...

Interesting story this one. I've been working with a customer who had a very simple package which consisted of a Sequence Container including an Execute SQL Task (which truncates the destination table) followed by a Data Flow Task. The Data Flow Task...

It seems Cumulative Update 6 (due in mid Feb 08) for SQL Server 2005 Service Pack 2 will include a code change so that performance counters show current performance values while the service is running, no matter what the service state was when perfmon...

I've just discovered that Cumulative Update 6 (due in mid Feb 08) for SQL Server 2005 Service Pack 2 will include a fix for the Analysis Services Redirector reliability issue I explained in my previous post.

Let's imagine that your instance of MSDE cannot be brought online because of any reason, like when your master database became corrupted or the their files are unavailable. Under such circumstances, if you try to rebuild the master database with a command...

A colleague approached me yesterday because he was finding the following entry ( marked in red below ) in his ERRORLOG, and he was worried because he thought the recovery of the ABC database was taking longer because a CHECKDB was run on it during the...

This is another problem I've been working on recently, whose resolution I felt could be interesting to share here. Let's first reproduce the errors, before trying to explain anything. So, please, connect to your instance of SQL Server 2005 and run this...

One colleague reported to me that one of his customers was getting the following error message when trying to install SQL Server 2005 Service Pack 2: Func Name='RestoreSetupParams'> Failed to find installation media path due to datastore exception...

That was the question one develepment consultant asked me. My initial answer, was what I typically answer when I'm asked any of these questions: "I dunno, but let me check it for you." :-) After reviewing the source code of SSIS runtime in SQL Server...

Have you ever experienced this error in SQL Server 2005 and under the same circumstances, but using SQL Server 2000 instead, you never "suffered" this problem? This issue was recently raised to my attention. And its resolution I found it of general...

A colleague reported to me what she considered a weird behavior, she was experiencing while trying to monitor her SQL Server 2005 instances' performance counters. Her main concern was this: Why do my SQL Server 2005 counters do not report actual values...

  Somebody was trying to run the SQL Server Import and Export Wizard (DTSWizard.exe) in one of his machines, but when he clicked Next on the first (welcome) dialog, it showed the following error:     ===================================...

I have been working on a case where a customer reported that, once he plugged in his custom assembly which implemented a set of SqlFunctions and he invoked those functions from T-SQL, SQL Server started eagerly eating all memory and performance dropped...

Then go and participate in the Connect Beta program. Be among the pioneers to discover and enjoy this new release, featuring many improvements and new experiences which have been build out based on your inestimable feedback.   Thanks in advance for...

First part of this post is available at SQL Server Agent failing to start because "The EventLog service has not been started" . I've just confirmed an improvement has been already checked-in into SQL Server 2008's code which keeps up calling...

Even though the documentation doesn't explicitly explain the existence of this limitation, a failover clustered instance of SQL Server (whether it is 2000 or 2005) doesn't support loading data or log files of any database from disks other than those which...

If you have an OLE DB Source within a Data Flow in your SSIS package, and you click on the Preview button to get a sample (max of 200 rows) of the data returned by the statement you have configured, and the server takes more than 30 seconds to return...

Somebody told me today that he was using SQL Server Management Studio Database Properties (Files Page) to try to set the Initial Size property of a database file to a value lower than the one currently set for that file on the server. And even though...

( This post has been extended with SQL Server Agent failing to start because "The EventLog service has not been started" (Second Part) ) One customer reported to us that their SQL Server 2000's SQL Server Agent services, recently started to...

The following topic in SQL Server 2000's documentation “Backing Up the model, msdb, and distribution Databases” ( http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa173541(SQL.80).aspx) , and the equivalent in SQL Server 2008 “Backing Up the model and msdb Databases...

After a long time, I had the opportunity to meet again my colleague and friend Eladio , who is a well recognized Mentor working at Solid Quality Mentors . He was delivering some training sessions to Microsoft customers in our premises today. In one of...

One customer reported that he was running SQL Server 2000 Enterprise Edition build 8.00.2187. His System's default language setting was Russian (but it happens that it could be reproduced with any locale different than US English.) He was running one...