My guess (based on bitter experience); it is an audit table populated by an AFTER UPDATE trigger and something is updating the source table without a WHERE clause.

Could it have been a before/after test for the addition of a primary key or unique index? It would fail if the table has either.

If your update is not parameterised, the problem could be due to occasional single quote characters in the input, eg.

Update MyTable set Surname = 'O' Connor'

The update statement would terminate...

Why are duplicate companies a problem? I would expect at least a few cases where you have more than one contact at a particular company.

My guess is that they're using some tool to import data. Many of these tools offer the option to disable triggers during import and it's often the default setting.

Chris

If you decide to go ahead with the change, my recommendation would be to build empty databases with the new collation and copy the data across with a tool such...

Sorry, I can't point you in the direction of any specific SOX documentation; the work I did was over 8 years ago at a different employer. We didn't go through...

I'd add one thing to Craig's post; SOX isn't just about data - you need the paper trail for code changes too (table/view definitions, stored procedures, functions, triggers, etc.).

Chris

John,

all our C# applications use stored procedures to change data; it's the easiest way to set up the security so that users can do only what you want them to...

+1 for Luis' post. The query results grid in SSMS was never intended as an end-user reporting tool; there are separate purpose-built tools for that. I use the SSMS grid...

Is there any code after the Select, eg. tidy-up code?

I also put "Just B" on the basis that ordering by name in query C isn't guaranteed.

I was thinking of * in it's Unix/Windows context as meaning 'All' rather than 'Star'. You can thank Douglas Adams for my original answer.

I do know what it actually returns,...

Surely SELECT COUNT(*) should return 42?

We had SQL_Latin1_General_CP1_CI_AS on our 2005 server and most of the existing databases and were moving to Latin1_General_CI_AS on the 2008 server.

In Visual Studio, I used the option to generate...