In SQL Server 2005, we introduced a different method than in previous versions to rebuild system databases (affectionately known as "rebuild master"). You were required to use the setup.exe program with command line switches. This is no different...

My SQL Server does not have individual windows users established as separate logins.   Instead it has the Domain\SQLUsers group established as a WINDOWS GROUP login.  You can review your mappings using the following DMVs. select * from...

Many of you may have read my post about dependencies with Visual Studio 2008 SP1 and the .Net Framework 3.5 SP1 and SQL Server 2008. I have some related information to provide to you about SQL Server 2008 Express. If you are a user of SQL Server 2008...

This post is more of a T-SQL trick and NOT a recommendation practice, but since I addressed this in a recent customer case I thought I would share it. Problem:   Application needs to lock a row for the duration of the transaction and ensure no data...

Do the release notes really ever contain anything that can help you with your deployment of a product? Well in the case of SQL Server 2008, the answer is YES. Here are the following benefits for using the Releases Notes which can be found at the following...

The string '100,200,300' has fooled many a customer and support engineer alike. select cast('100,200,300' as bigint) Msg 8114, Level 16, State 5, Line 1 Error converting data type varchar to bigint. One might argue that this is a bigint value.  However...

The Page Audit User is one of the main execution paths for data integrity checking.   SQLIOSim runs test cycles and during each test cycle the [Audit User] section of the .INI configuration file is used.  These workers perform various page...

When connecting to a SQL Named Instance, you may encounter a Timeout error when trying to connect to it if the client is Vista or Windows 2008 with the client Firewall enabled. This particular issue is only present if you are running the SQL 2008 Browser...

The following is a question we have received from a few folks who were concerned after installing SQL Server 2008 that they did not have the final released build. When you use SQL Server Management Studio and select the Help/About menu choice to see what...

PLEASE NOTE: This blog post has been updated from its original posting to clarify other details about installation of SQL Server 2008 and Visual Studio 2008 SP1. I must say that I'm personally proud to see our release of SQL Server 2008. I've been involved...