It is funny you write this article now. I have to do this exact same thing next weekend. The difference is for merge replication I am not doing to add a dummy column. I am created a backup table (select * into backuptable from original table). Then I am dropping the replicated column sp_dropreplcolumn, then added the column back with the expanded datatype varchar. I will then copy the data back from the backup table to the current table. update original table set currenttable.currcolname = backuptable.columnname. Same result a few less steps.