I started this, but didn't mean it to be a "Joe flame" thread.

So I'll close it here.

And following some other comments, after all my years, after all the books, after...

Unfortunately I see it as a big problem in our profession.  And I unfortunately use the term profession loosely now a days.

I am a professional, I take pride in what...

Having a bad day Joe ??

While your statements are correct, take it easy on people.  Not everyone has the knowledge and understanding of IT that some of us do.

At least...

Try SP_Addserver newname, 'local'

You have to stop / star SQL for it to take affect

Check that with MS directly.

It was true, but I seem to remember something recently, maybe it's just a foggy memory but, that they dropped that requirement for Std.

The DTS Backup package works well,

There is a switch on one of the panels to retain formatting.

Don't forget to check it, even so a few will need to be...

Depending on how quickly you need to improve things :

"Never throw hardware at a poor design, as the ROI is never as good as taking the time to rethink the...

Two although years ago.

One had redundant communication lines external, both running under the same sidewalk.  Contractor had to dig up the sidewalk and cut both cables.

Downtime, just over 24 hours.

Earlier...

Julian

I believe the restriction of not being able to shrink below original allocation size went away with 2k.  At least if you explicitly state the shrink to size.

I will try...

Randy

Do you have any Binary, Image or Text fields in the DB ?

SQL7 has a bug that causes exactly this problem.  I went back and forth with MS Support, and...

Although the coincedence of 32GB makes me wonder. but I've passed that number on several occasions.

Sometimes I have noticed SQL will not create files if there is not enough Contigous...

What version of SQL are you running. 

There is a problem (bug) in 7.0 that would cause this to happen.

After much effort back and forth with MS, they confirmed...

Do not use the second version, that will actually delete the table.

The first is roughly correct, but you need to used to parm coming back from "ForEachTable" instead of TableName

It's...

I doubt if it will have any effect on performance. The size defined is just the MAX, not the actual.  And Varchar is Varchar wether (20) or (8000). So all...

No way that I know of.

I've had problems with developers providing me table and SP changes, and having to rerun the SP changes as they were dependent on the tables...