And those cars aren't perfect. There are "features" on them that don't work. Browse the recall lists and you might be surprised how many things need to be fixed. If...

No hidden files. MDF + NDF(s) + LDF is the database size. Don't forget backups.

It is interesting and the title doesn't help. It's a good thing that so many people want to help, and I can sympathize. Reading 50+ replies is time consuming.

Everyone wants...

usually. Rebuild indexes to defragment. Shrinking usually causes fragmentation.

Assemblies can be flaky if they're 32bit, SQLMail doesn't work, etc. There are potential issues, but if you have a simple db setup, then you should be OK.

The DBA architect is fairly specialized, and I'm not sure how valuable it is.

I'd stick with ITPro as the certification to show off and use on your resume/CV

You could use a union and select a field

if exists ( select ID from sysobjects where ...

...

You need to call Microsoft for this. Catalog errors can have serious effects on your database.

We have this on our list, not sure if this is something we want to do, or how well it would be used.

All topics have icons to mark about if...

You'd have to check on the various publications and amount of changes.

I've seen 100MB databases have 1GB worth of changes a month. Replication moves all changes, so if someone does...

I'd recommend backup/restore OR make sure you have a copy of the files before attaching. The upgrade is a one way process, so you cannot go back to SQL 7.

At...

Is this in reporting services? Please post to the appropriate forum. I've moved it there, so post if it needs to be moved back.

If you want to pull data for...

I'd keep gaining experience and I'd keep re-evaluating how I feel about this. It can be lonely being the only one working on a project, and if it really bothers...

If you don't need permissions off the server, meaning no communications (mail, copy backup, agent, etc.), then use Local Service, not Localsystem. Local System is an admin level account.

If you...

The surface area configuration wizard just runs sp_configure with parameters to change the various features. It's nothing more than a dressed up SSMS wizard.

If someone has access to your instance,...