Hi everyone

Thanks for your replies.

I feel like a sinner today. I did wonder several times if I should publish this article, but decided it hopefully has more advantages than disadvantages. On a related note, a while back I created a C# utility that opens password protected Excel spreadsheets or Word documents, I even created an article about it, but decided not to publish…

Firstly, I keep thinking I should say “This utility does not replace DBCC CHECKDB”, but then I notice I have, many times.

Sten/Simon, thanks for the code fix! Much appreciated.

Erik, thank you for your suggestions, all very sensible.

Grant, hopefully I’ve mentioned this utility is not a substitute for DBCC CHECKDB enough times for people to be aware. That said, I do understand your concerns. I would hope, in the right hands, this utility will prove very useful.

Let me tell you all why I wrote this utility. I had a 5 terrabyte database, where the weekend DBCC CHECKDB typically took 10 hours to complete, and when there were problems it would sometimes take 48 hours to complete before it gave me any indication of errors. During this time I decided it might be nice to get a head start on what the underlying problems were, and how serious (heap/clustered index problems are much more troublesome). Using this utility, while the associated DBCC CHECKDB was running on another box, allowed me to identify the severity of the error very quickly, and plan/implement corrective action.

Whilst for large databases you might run a DBCC CHECKDB on a weekly basis (typically due to its duration), it should be possible to run this utility on a daily basis, resulting in some degree of confidence of the state of the database’s underlying data, between weekend DBCC CHECKDB checks.

I feel like I need to say it one more time, so here goes… “This utility does not replace DBCC CHECKDB”

Thanks

Ian