There are some things in SQL Server that are extremely intolerant of delays. Backups is one and tempdb may be another. Since it is used at a low level by...

Never tried it and I don't see the option in XP. I'll see if I can dig something up.

Good question. I'm not sure. I need to dig into the forum code a bit and see. It's from the InstantForum.com guys, so they'd need to support it.

You can use the GUI or ALTER DATABASE command to set the initial size higher.

Can't do it retroactively. You have to setup a process to check the space once a day or so and store it somewhere. I used to do this for backups...

It's been suggested and it's on our list. I agree with you, just a few things that are broken first. We'll get to it.

You should use IP or setup a local DNS to connect. Using the servername won't work across most VPNs. Only FQDNs.

I'd recode the triggers to do the same thing as the sp_start_job. In general, you never want to trigger some process with a trigger because the transaction will never complete.

Through a linked server, any query will do.

if exists( select top 1 * from sysusers) insert logtable

will do it from the source server.

If it's something regular, I agree with DMO. I had a DMO script to check all logins on all servers for blank passwords at my last job. I can try...

dateadd( h, x, cast( datefield as datetime))

 where x is the hour difference. datefield is your column.

Is it one account, like a sysadmin account?

Have you checked for roles or perhaps some other changes that might have been made on one box you are not aware of? sounds...

Definiteiyl not a stupid question.

Using a second server or second instance is the best awy to go. It won't see your databases and so they will be suspect on the...

Not directly. You can use dynamic sql,

select @cmd = 'alter table mytable add ' + (year + 1) + ' int' ...

exec ( @cmd)

This isn't an endorsement, but some thoughts.

I tested SQLZip and Litespeed (v2.x) a few years back. SQLZip had better compression, but used lots of CPU. Litespeed gave me a good...