Thank you for your answer!

Unfortunally i cannot use sys.dm_db_stats_properties, since our server does not have Service Pack 2. It will be installed, but for the moment i cannot use it.

From what I could see the modification_counter column represents the total number of modifications since the last time the statistics were updated.

My issues are with the column sys.system_internals_partition_columns.modified_count

I did dome tests in updating the statistics in a table and the column sys.system_internals_partition_columns.modified_count did not seem to change.

As an example:

The table has 176719385 rows

The statistics on the clustered index were last updated on 2011-04-21 13:34:34.183

The column sys.sysindexes.rowmodctr = 4694424

The column sys.system_internals_partition_columns.modified_count = 185944892

After the update with fullscan:

The table has 176719385 rows

The statistics on the clustered index were last updated on 2013-04-26 09:29:38.223

The column sys.sysindexes.rowmodctr = 0

The column sys.system_internals_partition_columns.modified_count = 185944892

I probably do not have all the information, or i am missing something obvious, but what i want is to understand how the sys.system_internals_partition_columns.modified_count is calculated.

It does not seem to change after the update of statistics, like the column sys.sysindexes.rowmodctr.

Also, the column sys.sysindexes.rowmodctr only refers to statistics for indexes, and i need something that would show me the same way the modifications on columns statistics, since the last time the statistics were updated.

Sorry for the long post,

Thank you!