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...

I'd detach, then rename and attach as you mentioned. Not sure if there's an easier way. Don't forget this is a fairly big change. All connection string code needs to...

Good idea, I'll tackle it today.

great questions. Ones I han't thought of. I'll ping Andy for some clarification.

There might be, but how do your determine a 4 column table has columns 1,2,4,5 and not 1,2,3,4? If you can explain that logic, I'm sure someone can generate some...

The permissions to start SQL Server should come from the Windows service permissions. Stopping can come frmo SQL Server or Windows, depending on whether you can issue a stop command...