I'm missing BULK EXPORT.

Another point: even if you can do some OS-like stuff with SQL Server, the account that runs...

I think the risk is reasonable, as long you are using an xp_cmdshell_proxy_account with minimal privileges.

On the other side it would nice, if SQL Server would provide us with more...

If he would have written a book, than he would have written it on a PC with Word or on a typewriter (if he is conservative).

I don't believe that even...

~95 km; Bonn (Germany); once a year (in June)

You are right, if I declare the year column (and the partition function) with BIGINT instead of SMALLINT the implicit convertation will work and it scans only one partition

when I have to sent passwords per email, I try to include neither the username nor the app / site that uses the password and tell the person what it...

Nice article, but

- minus point for the usage of [dbo].[udfBuildISO8601Date] (UDFs are slow); there is a built in function DATEFROMPARTS() with the same syntax, that outputs a date. If necessary...

I'd say, that - depending on which index it uses and / which other sorts it has to do / when you are MERGE joining / going parallel / are...

... Furthermore without the ROWS BETWEEN UNBOUNDED PRECEDING AND CURRENT ROW it would be slow because with the default RANGE-parameter it has to spill out to TempDB.

@topic:

- you should never use FIRST_VALUE without "ROWS BETWEEN UNBOUNDED PRECEDING AND CURRENT ROW", otherwise it will always spill out to TempDB -> slow

- for this reason I prever to...

Yes - it seems so. But please don't ask me, if this is a bug or intended behavior (I tend to bug or at least misbehavior, because MSSQL usually do...