Using XP_FILEEXIST
XP_FILEEXIST gives you the ability to find files and directories. Find out how else you can use it in this article.
Creating SQL Objects on the fly with VB and XML
A method for creating databases and other objects on the fly and distribute these objects to multiple servers.
Speed Tips For Select Statements
This article by Neil Boyle examines techniques for speeding up your queries by writing better T-SQL.
Professional SQL Server 2000 DTS Review
Steve Jones reviews the premier DTS reference for SQL Server 2000.
SQL Server 7.0 and OLE DB Heterogeneous Queries
This article discusses queries that involve more than one database server. For example, you can run a query that returns a joined recordset where some records come from a SQL Server™ database and others come from an AS/400 machine.
Speedy Database Recovery with Differential Backups
Differential backups are a new feature in SQL 7 that can speed up your recovery times when restoring from database and transaction log backups.
Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Reliability
Lots of people are designing and building Microsoft Windows-based apps with previously unimagined reliability. Starbucks, GMAC, and FreeMarkets.com all have case studies demonstrating five nines. So, how are these companies able to achieve these levels of reliability?This month I am going to show you how to use standard Microsoft Windows technologies to make your Microsoft SQL Server™ app just like Denny's—“always open” and ready for business.
Complex updates using the Case statement
One of the keys to database performance if keeping your transactions as short as possible. In this article we will look at a couple of tricks using the CASE statement to perform multiple updates on a table in a single operation.
Put Advanced SQL Server Features To Work
SQL is the lingua franca of server-side Web data apps. Some of the advanced features of SQL joins, views, rankings, and computed columns can drastically simplify your code.
Blogs
Presenting with Visual Studio Code
A while back I wrote a quick post on setting up key mappings in...
Advice I Like: In 100 Years
By Steve Jones
In 100 years a lot of what we take to be true now will...
dataMinds Saturday 2026 – Slides
At Saturday the 21st of February I’m presenting an introduction to dimensional modelling at...
Forums
AllocationType as ROW_OVERFLOW_DATA
Hello, I inherited a number of tables with like 20-30 column using nvarchar(256) in...
is it true we cant debug c# scripts in ssis anymore under vs
Hi, i'm running vs2022. I'm trying out a c# script that i'd like to...
Question of the Day
Missing the Jaro Winkler Distance
I upgraded a SQL Server 2019 instance to SQL Server 2025. I wanted to test the fuzzy string search functions. I run this code:
SELECT JARO_WINKLER_DISTANCE('tim', 'tom')
I get this error message:Msg 195, Level 15, State 10, Line 1 'JARO_WINKLER_DISTANCE' is not a recognized built-in function name.What is wrong? See possible answers