Maybe it's just an issue I had.
The last time I altered the SIZE of tempdb data files in SQL, when SQL restarted tempdb files were still larger than that.
If the ALTER DATABASE ... SIZE = nnnKB beforehand will work on restart, then of course that's a much better method.
I'm dealing with a range of servers from early SQL 2005 to late SQL 2008 so I might be mixing an earlier problem in that no longer applies.
SQL DBA,SQL Server MVP(07, 08, 09) A socialist is someone who will give you the shirt off *someone else's* back.