Dave

Shrinking your database won't have any effect on the size of the backup, only the size of the database files.

1. Have you tried ALTER TABLE MyTable ALTER COLUMN MyColumn varchar(n) NOT NULL? It might be worth considering, if you haven't already done so, whether you actually need varchar(max).

2. Figure out the size your database needs to be, allowing for growth and index maintenance and so on, then shrink to that size. Rebuild indexes after that.

3. Not that I'm aware of. A restore of a backup restores the database as it was when it was backed up.

John