Paul,

Well, I'm good and stumped here.  The only thing I can think of is that maybe there's a hidden newline character somewhere in the date field, but I'm not...

Steve,

Maybe they are just using it in a colloquial sense, but there are a lot of people who would take the word "Snapshot" literally.  So I decided just to stick...

I don't recommend a snapshot, actually.  If the Developers are going to be constantly developing against a DB, a better practice would be to do a nightly restore of production...

Ariadne,

Remember also, that if you automate your backups via the Litespeed Enterprise console, it can self verify without you having to "wait until it's done" and running that extended sproc.

Actually, there's sound reason to move your SQL Server install to another drive.  If you have multiple drives, put your OS on the C: drive and then the SQL Server...

DateTime collation issues shouldn't affect a character field, so it's a little strange to me...

What's the code you're using for the Bulk Insert?  What delimiters are being used in the...

Paul,

What size is the character field you're using in your staging table?  You don't mention that.

Also, if it's importing as a character field, but syntax erroring on the Convert, you...

Andras,

Thanks for clarifying my link issues.  I thought you were talking TechNet, not BOL. @=)

You know, I already knew all this extended property stuff.  I guess I just didn't realize...

So, basically I'm correct in thinking that if I don't need to return results as one row XML (FOR XML RAW without the Elements keyword), that there's really no reason...

I've never actually had a bully boss myself.  I had a paranoid micro-managing boss once, and a strict / insensitive boss another time, but never one that was an actual bully. ...

Paul, check the collation on your server OS and on your SQL Server.  The column itself might be collated differently than the other collations or your database / server collation...

I can't reach that URL.  IE keeps complaining about a bad gateway.

Is there a KB # or a search term I could use to find it?

FYI: The Query menu option only works for the window you're currently working in.  If you want a more permanent solution that sticks with every window, go to Tools ->...

You shouldn't need all the fancy substring stuff to convert properly, assuming you have good data in your fields.  Try:

Convert

(datetime, <mydate>, 103)

That's what I'm hoping. @=)  My test is scheduled in a week & 1/2, so we'll see.

My main problem is the technologies that 2k5 has but that we aren't using...