Many of you have asked me the performance impact of: a) Running a default profiler trace b) Enabling page checksum Although there is only theoretical information available in BOL, Linchi Shea (SQL Server MPV) has some good posts on empirical...

Well, as mentioned earlier, the SQL Server Support team now has an official blog and I am busy blogging there. For all those SQL Server aficionados, I encourage you to visit our blog. You will find really good content out there which will help you...

We recently posted a blog about SQL 2005 Security enhancements, focussing on encryption and decryption. Check it out and let us know what you think. http://blogs.msdn.com/sqlblog/archive/2006/11/02/part-i-data-security-enhancements-in-sql-server...

We are seeing this issue for many customers installing SQL 2005 SP1. Check out the resolution for it at our support blog http://blogs.msdn.com/sqlblog/archive/2006/10/09/_1C20_Unexpected-error-occurred_1D20_-during-SQL-Server-2005-SP1-install_2E00_...

I wrote another article for Simple-Talk.com and it is available to view now. Fine Tune Your Database Design in SQL 2005 http://simple-talk.com/sql/sql-server-2005/fine-tuning-your-database-design-in-sql-2005/ Let me know what you think. Sanchan

We have recently added Reporting Services as a blog category for our SQL Server Support Blog. Would encourage you to check it out. http://blogs.msdn.com/sqlblog/default.aspx

Recently, I blogged about an issue with SQL Server 2005 tools. You might get the below error when using these tools: Unhandled exception has occurred in your application. If you click Continue, the application will ignore this error and attempt to...

I am running a survey on Query Notification and would appreciate if you could fill it out. http://blogs.msdn.com/sqlblog/archive/2006/09/30/778143.aspx Thanks Sanchan

Well, I have been blogging at a new blog home. http://blogs.msdn.com/sqlblog/ This blog is setup by the SQL Server Support team at Microsoft and I have been blogging there for quite sometime now. Check out this blog for my latest writings. You...

Sometime ago, I blogged about SQL Server 2005 installation and how you can use Add/Remove programs to add or remove components in SQL 2005. I recently published a KB article on this – KB 922670 . Please refer to it for more information on...

Many customers have asked me if they can install SQL 2000 and SQL 2005 on the same box, side by side. The answer to this is YES. You can install SQL 2000, SQL 7.0 and SQL 2005 on the same box. However, there are certain special considerations...

Today, one of my articles got published at Simple Talk Magazine in the UK. In this article, I take a deep dive into the nuts and bolts of implementing SQL Server 2005 Query Notification using SQLCacheDependency object in ASP.NET 2.0. You can take...

Well, the last month has been really hectic and I have been involved with a lot of stuff that I never planned for – as you can see, I didn’t get much of a chance to blog this month. But now that things are back to normal pace, I am coming back!...

This is the first installment in my FAQ series. In this blog entry, I have consolidated all the questions that I have received from my readers about available disk subsystems in the market and their compatibility with SQL Server. I have tried...

Just a quick note, Microsoft has published a great whitepaper on TempDB. You can download it here: http://download.microsoft.com/download/4/f/8/4f8f2dc9-a9a7-4b68-98cb-163482c95e0b/WorkingWithTempDB.doc I will add more blog content about TempDb...

I have received a lot of questions on installing Analysis Services 2005 on a cluster and I wanted to write this blog to answer those questions using specific scenarios. Scenarios - You create a new Windows Cluster and decide to install ALL...

Unlike SQL 2000, SQL 2005 setup on a cluster now requires you to provide domain groups for each clustered service – like SQL Database Engine, SQL Agent, FTS, Analysis Services. Many customers have asked me interesting questions about domain groups...

When you install SQL Server 2005, depending upon the components you installed, you will see a couple of entries in the Add/Remove programs related to SQL Server 2005. The most important one is Microsoft SQL Server 2005. This entry provides you with...

You will be surprised to know how many times this topic comes up during discussions with SQL Server DBAs. I guess the reason for confusion or discussion primarily emanates from the fact that the documentation on this topic hasn’t been that detailed...

You may see the following error message in SQL Server 2005 Error logs or event logs: SQL Server has encountered %d occurrence(s) of I/O requests taking longer than %d seconds to complete on file [%ls] in database [%ls] (%d). The OS file handle is...

I wanted to publish this quick blog tonight to answer some of the questions that I have received recently regarding installation from an .ini file. Microsoft has published a great MSDN article that lists the commands and options to use for installing...

I came across this excellent blog by Euan Garden, who is a Group Program Manager at Microsoft. http://blogs.msdn.com/euanga/archive/2006/05/04/585513.aspx In this blog, he tries to answer the most commonly asked question - how to hide databases...

Microsoft launched SQL Server 2005 in November, 2005. This build was called the RTM version. In April, 2006, we launched Service Pack 1 which included a lot of new features and fixes for known bugs. Check out my blog here to learn more about SP1. ...

Due to your company's password policies, you might have to change the password of the domain account used as the startup account by SQL Server services. Your changes will be reflected in the active directory. Next time, when SQL Server services try...

I wanted to post this quick blog to answer a very common question - domain vs local system account for SQL Server services. All this information is out there at Books Online. So I will just put references here. Local System Account is a very privileged...