I like Lowell's idea. The problem with snapshots is they don't survive restores or issues with the system. They also would not survive a migration to another server. IMHO, archiving...

If you don't have a windows account with administrative access, I suggest you find the media for SQL Server and perform an uninstall/reinstall.

In terms of hacking an old database, how would they know the record count? What if it was a dev database? I've seen those before, development passwords moving to production...

I don't think we know what you mean. There are different types of writes for different things. What are you trying to learn or what are you working on?

You ought to check on a few things, like the counts for these SELECTs (without the inserts), and also on the execution plan. My guess would be you are getting...

Note that the log is restarted when the logs are cycled or SQL is restarted. That can be a long interval, and the logs can be big. So they can...

When you use SSMS, you can use the "Script" button to get the T-SQL script that is run. Then you can schedule that as needed.

There isn't necessarily anything wrong with a multi-column key, I agree. Strong RI declared will keep things in sync, but I find having all those columns in all tables cumbersome....

You could replicate to a central server, but you'd have to address ID issues. Most centralization schemes have to solve this problem and there isn't a good way to do...

I think I like the last advice. Mimic the production environment and keep the names the same. A linked server also works, but be sure you use different accounts in...

I've used domain accounts or "sa", but don't use any other user accounts. Can cause issues at times.

How did you move the database? Are you getting similar resource counters on the new Amazon db? Are you sure there isn't network traffic delaying things?

I might update statistics as...

The files don't change from 32 bit to 64 bit. Only operations in memory are different (using 64 bits instead of 32).

There are some driver issues in a few places,...

That procedure stops a job that is running. It doesn't disable a job.

You need sp_update_job (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa260379%28SQL.80%29.aspx)

They can run together, but I usually offset them to avoid resource contention issues.