How many times has an application exploded because you upgraded or patched SQL Server? How many people were aware that a patch was applied? New author Andre Vigneau has dealt with this and gives us some code that our applications can use to check to see if anything has changed. It doesn't keep the code working, but it does allow you to inform users that something has changed.
This is the twenty-fourth article of the series, MDX Essentials. The series is designed to provide hands-on application of the fundamentals of the Multidimensional Expressions (MDX) language, with each tutorial progressively adding features designed to meet specific real-world needs.
Version control in SQL Server is fairly immature, to put it nicely. Fortunately it's also an area that a number of vendors are working to make smoother. Dinesh Asanka looks at dbMaestro, a tool from Extreme Technologies to help you track changes in multiple databases.
This article examines how to take advantage of VB Script and MS-DOS batch files to restore multiple DTS packages stored in the form of structured storage files from one folder to a SQL Server box.
SQL Server has a rock solid backup routine that works every time. However the schemes used to implement backups with maintenance plans, Enterprise Manager, etc., are not a smooth or as flexible as what most people require. Author Eli Lieba brings us his strategy and code for ensuring that each database is backed up how he needs it to be, whether a full or differential backup.
Typically, access to data is provided via client applications, which increases the range of potential vulnerabilities and places an equal share of responsibility for data security on software developers. This is especially important since application flaws can have just as catastrophic implications as a misconfigured or unsecured SQL Server installation.
SQL Server's Data Transformation Services (DTS) is a fantastic tool for importing data from any type of source. However even with this tool, you sometimes need more flexibility than it appears to have, especially if the data formats are unknown far enough in advance. New author Chris Cathers has developed a technique that allows him to be extremely flexible without causing too many headaches down the road.
Learn how to use the new notification technologies in ADO.NET 2.0 and SQL Server 2005 to handle ad-hoc data refreshes.
If you allow users write access to replicated tables on the subscriber, you can run into cases where a record is inserted on the wrong server - which will result in a replication stopping error if the same primary key is later inserted on the publisher. Find out how to fix it without pushing a new snapshot.
Indexing performance has always been the Achilles' heel of SQL Server's full-text feature. Although the search performance itself is fast (very few customers complain about the search speed), users do complain (often loudly and frequently) about how slow the indexing process is–especially for large tables. Here's a few tips for you.
By Steve Jones
If someone is trying to convince you it’s not a pyramid scheme, it’s a...
By Steve Jones
I was looking back at my year and decided to see if SQL Prompt...
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Hi experts, I have a 3+ TB database on a 2019 sql server which...
Comments posted to this topic are about the item The North Star for the...
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Multiple Escape Characters
In SQL Server 2025, I run this code (in a database with the appropriate collation):
SELECT UNISTR('%*3041%*308A%*304C%*3068 and good night', '%*') AS 'A Classic';
What is returned? See possible answers