You can try to play some tricks in the output of your SP, e.g. print SQL server comment (-- or /* */) after the output etc.

This may not work becuase SQL agent always add...

If you really need unicode, try to save as utf-8.

From BOL on Execute a stored procedure:

OUTPUT

.... Constants cannot be passed to stored procedures using OUTPUT; the return parameter requires a variable name. The variable's data type must be...

For my opinion, if you have more than 5 different columns as the input, you can consider using dynamic SQL. Otherwise it's not easy to maintain the code.

Forgot to say you need to run DBCC TRACEON(3604)  first to direct the output of DBCC PAGE to QA. So the command should be:

DBCC TRACEON(3604)

GO

DBCC PAGE (....)

GO

RID is in the format of  db_id:file_id:page_no:row_no.

You can use DBCC PAGE to find out the object in the page.

DBCC PAGE (6,1,92,0)

For the deatil output of DBCC PAGE, you search it...

Text data type parameter cannot be an OUTPUT parameter. Check BOL

If you run the query in QA, you will get an error.

I once had the similar issue, though not identical. I had SET ROWCOUNT n statmement before a INSERT SELECT ORDER BY command. The data inserted into the table is not...

I am not sure the reason. Can you check the running account of the sql server on w2003 machine? Does this account have permission to access/create the file in the...

If your SP has loops and you enabled to show execution plan, you can easily run into this situation.

As you said, it seems there are some problem to start the service. Can you check windows event log and sql errorlog for more information?

"IF" is not allowed in a view. But you can try to use CASE expression.

If the value of query parameters are in big ranges, you can force the SP to recompile each time when it's called.

CREATE PROCEDURE usp_xxx

WITH RECOMPLIE

AS

...

Though recompile is said "expensive", actually...

How many files do the file group that the table (PK) resides have? Extent Scan Fragmentation value will be high if the index spans multiple files and you should not...

I turned on the traces several times on a busy OLTP system to debug dead lock issue before. As you said the impact was minimal.