timothyawiseman (5/8/2008)
Comments posted to this topic are about the item...edited from article...
Both sp_who and sp_who2 with its added columns can be tremendously valuable in scripts and programs, but for use on an ad hoc basis it is often more convenient to invoke the Activity Monitor GUI.
...edited from article...
Are you kidding me? If something is hanging up the server, the GUI will take minutes or longer to show you what's happening. Using sp_who2 is generally pretty fast even if the server is getting creamed by something.
I have a custom sp_who3 script which simply modifies the sp_who2 script to only show active processes. That way you can quickly see the active processes when something is slowing the server.
I find the GUI to be worthless.