Are these databases or instances? There's a big difference.

That is really strange. Thanks for testing.

Along with the suggestion from mxy above, can you restore/attach on a third 2005Sp4 box?

Also, if you take a backup or create a small...

I don't know if they can capture table row counts. I'm sure they have data size over time.

That's interesting. Haven't heard of PIT issues, but haven't tested. I do know the GC can lag, but worst case might not be an issue for you since it doesn't...

Not sure what you mean by local v others.

You need to be on the console, not on a different machine.

That is strange. I can't help but think that you have a version issue somewhere, or perhaps a weird network issue. You also say a 2008R2 server with 2005 installed....

Filestream will help. SHould allow you to manage the performance aspect of deletions better. Make sure you kill 8.3 naming in the folder.

This works on Standard, and the code...

+1 to what Sean said. That would be my guess.

My guess? There's a function call on the command with one of the string functions that's limited to 4000nvarchar/8000varchar. The command field in sysjobsteps is nvarchar(max), but I bet some...

+1 for what Grant said.

licenses are administrative. No checking here, so just install on a new machine, use the license, and decommission the old one so that you don't get caught in a...

Some of the downloads don't even let you enter a product key, but as Grant mentioned, it's for development.

Express, Standard, Enterprise for production.

I tend to agree with Gianluca. Some companies do value the certifications (or need them for Partner status), but many use them as a checkbox.

However, the effort to get certified...

Unless you have some field in a table that has a date stamp of some sort, you can't go back and look at sizes directly. If you have old backups,...

+1 to cunningham.

Also, what's a performance problem? Is it slower than it was before? By what metric? Or is it just that users are complaining?