Jeff I really like the 2 person rule. Who would have thunk something so simple could be so secure !

The string length behavior is normal. adding another SELECT to initialize the variable for each loop iteration produces the correct results !

DECLARE @counter INT;

SET @counter = 0;

WHILE @counter < 5

BEGIN

...

ahhh ... just another case of getting 'caught' by an 'implicit' converstion !

Here is a 'truism' that an old mainframer taught to me almost 3 decades ago:

One "awe sh#t" ruins ten thousand "atta boys" every time !

I too started with SQL v4.2 on OS2/Warp and have witnessed the 'evolution' of the 'tools' that a SQL Server DBA has available.

SSMS is a great all around tool...

Serenity

I have worked with SQL since v4.21 ...

also v4.21a, v6.0, v6.5, v7.0, 2000 ans 2005 (sorry no 2008 yet !)

likewise I will try - I even still have install source...

On another note - you really, really need to upgrade SQL 2000 Server to at least SP4.

You are presently running SP3a with security hotfix 818 - which has not been...

You may or may not want to shrink tempdb - it got to be its present size for a reason. I would suggest profiler to perform some monitoring before you...

I agree the format is 'wierd'. I also think that in a manner of speaking that it is redundant. As for me SSC will be the only SQL site I...

How about adding:

-e errorfile.txt

From an application perspective take a look at Mercury LoadRunner.

If you are having paging at the OS level you are in trouble NOW.

Memory is so cheap that there is absolutely no reason to have this type of issue anymore....

Hidden ???

sp_helpdb

Give this link a read ...

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms177603.aspx