you really need to have a good read of BOL, hire a DBA or attend a training course!

Paralleism is a result of ( usually ) poor queries that are...

awe is an o/s setting, via /pae switch, that enables application to address extended memory. For sql server to access this memory then you have to set awe on and...

well .. as I said they've only just pulled support for sql 2005 RTM. I was at Microsoft when told sp3 was coming !

not totally true as support for sql 2005 RTM has only just been removed so they were supporting RTM, sp1 and sp2 ( and a bunch of CU's )

If you're not using replication you can ignore them. No need to copy them.

been using x64 for about 18 months now at various sites, can't say there's any major issues. Most config issues are well documented.

it's reasonably easy to roll your own log shipping - I'd guess many sites have example scripts - in fact I think the sql2k res kit had an sample set...

what's correct is that there are no errors found when you run checkdb, not dates.

here's some info which may be of use http://sqlblogcasts.com/blogs/grumpyolddba/archive/2008/01/06/configuring-windows-2003-x64-for-sql-server.aspx

x32 and memory. It sort of depends upon what you're actually doing on the server, but - I'd advise against using...

yeah me too but here I am 16 years on and to be honest nothing surprises me now. What I do find surpising is that millions of io seem...

only a billion? I have a plan to post to my blog that actually overflowed an int!

you can use xp_cmdshell to issue a DIR command into a table and then interrogate to suit.

these files are used as templates for the distribution database when you use replication, they will be present at every server, you don't need to move them.

you might like to read some work I did on this

http://sqlblogcasts.com/blogs/grumpyolddba/archive/2008/02/18/analysing-indexes-summary.aspx

well I've seen the lock pages error but not when rebuilding an index. I guess you may have run out of physical memory. Have you infact set this permission?