Each service pack is cumulative. So if you install SP3, you're install SP1 and SP2. This is a quote from Microsoft (located here):

Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Service Pack 3 (SP3)...

For an INNER JOIN they are most likely to always produce identical execution plans and the performance will be the same. As a general practice, because of this, I advocate...

Yep, sorry, completely insufficient data. Couldn't possibly even guess with what you've provided. Please follow Gail's link & post the additional information.

Books Online has a whole topic devoted to the problem. Take a look.

I prefer using the DMV's for this sort of thing now. To monitor connections I'd use sys.dm_exec_connections and sys.dm_exec_requests. You can combine those with other DMV's to get a lot...

Or even just look at the file size.

I would add, that with very few exceptions, it's always best to store any data as the data type it should be. I frequently see problems with people storing dates...

Since it's only been in production for a couple of weeks, I have not heard any news about a possible service pack. I suspect it's at least 6-9 months out.

Yes,...

You can.

There are some design issues associated with GUIDs (Globally Unique IDentifiers) that you might want to know about. They're notoriously poor choices for clustered indexes, just as an example.

There is no function within backups that allows you to backup tables only.

You could move these tables to a different file group and try doing a file group only backup.

NEWID() is a built in function for SQL Server that generates a globally unique identifier value. You can run it within just about any TSQL code. Try:

SELECT NEWID()

Have you looked at the execution plans between different operating systems? It's hard to compare performance between different os's especially if you then toss in that Win 7 is a...

I guess I'm operating with a bigger budget. We've got two different backup generators that can each power the whole data center for about 72 hours without power interruption (two...

Another vote for Itzik's excellent book.

You might also want to check out Joe Sack's "Transact SQL Recipes." It's just a very straight forward listing of possible T-SQL solutions for common...

Well, pretty much, we start the SAN, get it online and tested, and then start up SQL Server. They are two, completely seperate operations and even managed by two completely...