Connect digest : 2009-10-25

AaronBertrand — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 12:17:00 GMT

Here is your weekly helping of Connect goodness. I added two items from the Connect connection, and an item from the Visual Studio connection.

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#500228 : Default Data Location Not Being Written To Registry

I was affected by this issue just yesterday, where I had set my default data location to G:\ (a big drive on the SAN) but the file went to C:\Program Files\... good thing I caught it before I pumped the database full of data.

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#499149 : SQL Server 2008 Rename Escape

I can see where this change in behavior can be dangerous: if you double-click too slowly on an object name in Object Explorer, you can trigger the rename functionality. If you don't notice and start typing, you could potentially rename your object. In SQL Server 2005, when you hit the Esc key, the name reverts to the original. In SQL Server 2008, when you hit the Esc key, your change gets committed.

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#499145 : Data file autogrowth change in SSMS issues SHRINKFILE

This one can be even more dangerous: trying to change the autogrowth settings for tempdb actually issues a shrinkfile command? Just another reason to always use DDL commands rather than relying on the UI crutch with a trick up its sleeve.

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#495966 : Connect site is frustratingly unpredictable

Connect has good days, and then it has bad days. There are some periods where doing just about anything in Connect (usually around searching) will yield an ugly error page. A few weeks ago I had a day that was terribly bad. So I did what they said, I copied some of my Error ID GUIDs and reported them. They responded to the ticket two weeks later, shrugging my experience off as a result of the XBox survey. Which happened two weeks *after* I reported my problems. No explanation in the ticket, mind you, just closed as "not reproducible" -- twice. What is the point of saving the Error IDs and reporting the problems if nobody is even going to look at them?

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#344765 : Firefox loops and cannot sign in

While this happens to me on a Mac, where I perform about 99.9% of my Connect interaction, it has also happened to users on Windows. This symptom is biting me as we speak... I need to use Safari today because even after clearing my cookies, Firefox behaves this way (click to enlarge):

My suggestion is to introduce a new authentication scheme for Connect. Be like Expedia : get rid of Windows Live Login.

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#499047 : Visual Studio 2010 Beta 2 not running as Administrator on Windows 7

I experienced the same issue as Nuno, on Windows Server 2008 R2, and whether I try using . I was able to get the IDE to run by first running from a command prompt: devenv /resetuserdata. However I think if Visual Studio fails to launch because something is corrupt from user data (which is probably going to be the case for a lot of users who are upgrading from a previous version), it should automatically try that instead of making us scour the Internet for this command line option. The error message "The application cannot start" is not good enough to make that fix apparent.

Connect digest : 2009-06-20

AaronBertrand — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 15:11:00 GMT

Here are the Connect items I'd like to draw your attention to this week. I have abandoned the idea of trying to keep track of vote counts and overall rating. Being lazy might be a small part of it, but it is mostly because I just don't think it makes sense to assume that my postings are all that influence Connect behavior. I know I have some impact on the visibility of certain items, but I'm going to leave it at that.

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SQL Server 2008 connection pooling problems

Something to watch out for if you are using connection pooling and SQL Server 2008:

#468478 : SQL Server 2008 Periodically Does Not Accept Connections

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Statistics on partitions

As partitioning becomes more of a viable and beneficial option, new requirements are creeping out of the woodwork, such as the ability to update statistics per partition instead of for the entire object:

#468517 : Update Statistics at the partition level

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DBCC SHRINKFILE() flexibility

While personally I think the need is not all that dire, some people want to be able to shrink a database file to a size smaller than the original allocation (which is currently prevented by SQL Server). Joe Sack made the request formal:

#467285 : Shrink files beneath originally allocated space

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Distributed transactions

Erland has filed a couple of interesting issues regarding distributed transactions:

#466739 : There should be a system function to tell whether the current transaction is a distributed transaction

#466749 : Cannot call stored procedures when a distributed transaction has been rolled back

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Clickable URLs in error messages

Finally, Adam is asking for URLs in the messages pane (e.g. those you could embed in custom messages or ad hoc within RAISERROR) to be clickable. I think it makes a lot of sense, though it is currently resolved as "won't fix"...

#454907 : Make URLs clickable in the SSMS Messages pane

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Please remember, I am not trying to coerce you to vote for issues you don't care about, just trying to raise awareness for some items that might have slipped under your radar...

Search results matching tags 'Connect' and 'shrinkfile'

Connect digest : 2009-10-25

Connect digest : 2009-06-20