Search results matching tags 'denali' and 'SQL Denali'

SQL Server 2012 : The Data Tools installer is now available

AaronBertrand — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 15:18:00 GMT

Last week when RC0 was released, the updated installer for "Juneau" (SQL Server Data Tools) was not available. Depending on how you tried to get it, you either ended up on a blank search page, or a page offering the CTP3 bits. Important note: the CTP3 Juneau bits are not compatible with SQL Server 2012 RC0.

If you already have Visual Studio 2010 installed (meaning Standard/Pro/Premium/Ultimate), you will need to install Service Pack 1 before continuing. You can get to the installer simply by opening Visual Studio, going to File > New > Project, and then choose the option "SQL Server" that appears under the "Other Languages" category (not the "SQL Server" option that appears under the "Database" category):

When you click OK, you will get another dialog that prompts you to install SQL Server Data Tools:

When you click Install, your web browser will be launched on the Data Tools "Get Started" page. There you will see a link to "Download SQL Server Data Tools" which will launch or download SSDTSetup.exe:

At this point I would close Visual Studio 2010, because you'll probably be prompted to close it anyway.

As usual you'll be prompted with a security warning:

Next you'll need to agree to the lengthy license terms and conditions:

Next it will download LoaclDB (the new dev/Express runtime) and install. For me on multiple installs the Installation Progress bar held at 99% for a noticeable amount of time:

With a little bit of luck you should end up at the "Success" screen:

Now you can open Visual Studio directly (or from the "SQL Server Data Tools" menu item under All Programs > Microsoft SQL Server 2012 RC0. Choose File > New > Project and again choose "SQL Server" under "Other Languages." The option depicted above has changed to "SQL Server Database Project":

Click OK. You will find a Toolbox and a familiar Object Explorer on the left, where you can easily create new objects:

And now you can go to town developing your project. I haven't tried upgrading a project from CTP3 or from a previous version of "Data Dude." You're on your own there, sorry.

As an aside the "other" SQL Server option under "Database" contains all the old project types that you may not want to use anymore. I hope they straighten this out and consolidate by RTM:

If you already had Juneau CTP3 installed, you should be able to install SQL Server Data Tools CTP4 as an upgrade by simply downloading the updated SSDTSetup.exe from the "Get Started" page. You may still need to install Visual Studio 2010 Service Pack 1 prior to doing so. For what it's worth, I completely removed SQL Server 2012 CTP3 and Juneau CTP3 before attempting to install the updated bits. If you try an upgrade and come across any issues, please let me know.

You may be wondering why the versioning seems out of cadence - SQL Server is at RC0 while Juneau is at CTP4. This is because SQL Server is feature complete and an upgrade to RTM will now be supported. Juneau is not quite complete (there are still some pending changes before RTM); the naming remains CTP so that folks do not get the impression that an upgrade to RTM will be supported.

SQL Server v.Next (Denali) : Putting Juneau CTP3 over Juneau CTP2

AaronBertrand — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 22:04:00 GMT

Okay, I'll be the first to admit, I tried to install CTP3 on a machine without first cleaning up the CTP2 bits. My primary motivation was to be able to query the catalog views to detect any metadata changes that I hadn't already talked about here. As you might have guessed, this experiment did not go well.

In a couple of cases I have installed CTP3 quite cleanly on new VMs. I haven't installed Juneau yet on those, because I'm a little nervous about what exactly that will do to Management Studio... and I need at least one VM where I can rely on full functionality there. I'm getting there, but I wanted to address the case where CTP2 *was* installed.

In cases where I would prefer to keep my existing VM (which has various other ongoing work other than Denali, making it infeasible to roll back to some snapshot), I've resorted to removing every single CTP1 or CTP2 piece of software using Programs and Features (nee Add/Remove Programs). Once I had removed CTP2 completely, I ran a repair of CTP3. I then realized that I didn't have Management Studio (because the complete removal of CTP2 included shared features such as client tools). So I ran setup again, adding the Management Tools and a few other odds and ends to the instance.

Now, with all traces of CTP2 gone (including Juneau), and a now functional CTP3 and Management Studio, I thought it was time to install Juneau. No problem, I go for the web installer, located here:

http://www.microsoft.com/web/gallery/install.aspx?appid=JUNEAU10

Unfortunately, all signs indicate that this is going to try to install CTP2:

Fellow MVP Juan Alvarado pointed me to the registry key that was causing this problem (thanks Juan!). It is one of the things that the CTP2 of Juneau did not clean up through the normal uninstall process. The key is:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\WebPlatformInstaller\ProductXmlLocation\

It will have a value of some folder on your machine (I changed the value to foo because my path was really long)... just change the name of the key to something else, or delete it entirely, and run the web installer again. You should see the right platform now:

I can't fault the team for this problem at all. I shouldn't expect CTPs to remove cleanly, and should know not to put CTPs on important machines or VMs that can't just be rebuilt as needed.

Ultimately, what you *REALLY SHOULD* be doing is installing CTP3 (both engine components and add-ons like Juneau) in a clean virtual machine. But I know how it is, it isn't always practical to dedicate an OS this way. So hopefully this helps some of you work around the issue.

In addition, I am in no way guaranteeing that Juneau will *work* - just that you should be able to get it installed. Once it's installed, I'm afraid you're on your own. If it doesn't work correctly, please read the previous paragraph.

SQL Server v.Next (Denali) : Getting Ctrl+R to work again

AaronBertrand — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 15:52:00 GMT

Ctrl+R is a good friend of mine - we go way back. It is very handy to use this command not only to hide the results pane away and focus on the query at hand, but to also be able to bring the results back just as quickly - without having to run the query again, or mess with click + drag nonsense.

In Denali, we get a new version of SSMS, tightly integrated into the Visual Studio shell. With that we get some great benefits (and I've talked about them before). In that post I also point out some of the problems - they've fixed the double-click on an error message bug, for example, but they haven't fixed some other things, such as Ctrl+U = lower case, instead of the more logical Ctrl+Shift+L (to match Ctrl+Shift+U for upper case).

The one that really got my goat yesterday is that Ctrl+R has been assigned to some other function. On a freshly-minted virtual machine, with a brand new install of Windows 7 (including 88 items from Windows Update), I laid down a clean install of Denali (very simple - just engine, BIDS, BOL and management tools - no Juneau, Visual Studio, Analysis Services or other BI features, etc etc). On the first launch of SSMS (where I am supposed to be asked for my keyboard preferences, but no prompt appeared), I opened a new query window, typed "SELECT 1;", and hit F5. I received a results pane with (No column name) / 1. Exactly as I expected. Then the trouble begins. I hit Ctrl+R; nothing happens. I wonder if I pressed the wrong letter, didn't fully press Ctrl, or what, so I press it again. My computer beeps at me like I was trying to double-click on the A: drive in Windows Explorer.

As a true sign of my insanity, I keep trying - expecting a different outcome with the same input. Then I notice the status bar changing as I fruitlessly try to make the results pane go away. On first press of Ctrl+R, I see this in the bottom left corner:

And when I press it again, along with the beep, the status bar changes to this:

Okay, so now we're onto something - it seems this change was intentional. So off I go to Tools / Options / Keyboard / General to see what's what. In the middle box, select Window.ShowresultsPane, change the "Use new shortcut in:" dropdown to SQL Query Editor (Global did not work for me), put your cursor in the "Press shortcut keys:" box and hit CTRL + R. You should see the following:

So I'm not sure what this Edit.SwapAnchor command is supposed to be, or why I give a rip about some DataWarehouse Designer - as I thought I had voted, simply by my installation choices, that I'm not crazy into BI. I'm sure this command is important to someone, and for them, the default will work just fine. For the other 99.99% of Management Studio users, you can fix this now by clicking Assign and then OK. Unlike some other changes that still require an SSMS restart to take effect (e.g. experimenting with font choices in grid results can be fun), the change takes effect immediately.

If you want to fix many of these keyboard shortcuts in one swoop, see this post from Denny Cherry (@mrdenny), where he provides a settings file you can import easily (just be aware that not all of his customizations match the original 2008 R2 settings exactly):

http://itknowledgeexchange.techtarget.com/sql-server/resetting-ssms-shortcut-keys-in-sql-server-denali-ctp-3/

I am hoping that the RCs or, at the very least, the RTM versions, show a keyboard scheme that says "SQL Server settings" instead of a generic "default." And that this default does not include Ctrl+R being assigned to a DataWarehouse Designer operation unless I say I want it that way.

EDIT
Microsoft has published the official instructions for resetting the keyboard, should you find yourself in this situation, and there is in fact a SQL Server mode (the choices in Tools/Options, "default" and "Visual Studio 2010 Compatible" are not that obvious - again, I'm hoping this gets changed to match the reset dialog). See the following blog post for more info:

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/sqlrem/archive/2011/07/13/enhanced-keyboard-shortcuts-in-ssms-in-denali.aspx

SQL Server v.Next (Denali) : Juneau CTP3 is now available!

AaronBertrand — Wed, 13 Jul 2011 13:32:00 GMT

SQL Server Developer Tools (SSDT) - code-named "Juneau" - is now available. Many (including myself) believed that Juneau was simply a part of BIDS in CTP3, but after trying to use Juneau-specific functionality that this was not the case. As indicated on the Developer Tools page, and on the SSDT blog, you can download Juneau now through a Web Platform Installer.

According to this page, if you're already using Visual Studio Professional, you need to install Visual Studio 2010 SP1 *FIRST* (though if you've installed Denali, you've probably already done this), otherwise your shell gets downgraded to only have Juneau functionality - at least that's how I've read it. In any case, suggest being up to date on Windows Updates and make sure that SP1 is installed before installing Juneau. You'll also want to be sure you install the CTP3 version of Juneau on a machine that has never had a previous version of Juneau installed - even a proper add/remove does not truly get rid of all of the pieces, and you're likely to end up with a quite crippled installation. All the more reason to use a VM for Denali stuff, since it is easy enough to throw away and re-create those.

You can start the Web Platform Installer by clicking on the following link:

http://www.microsoft.com/web/gallery/install.aspx?appid=JUNEAU10

First, you'll be asked by Internet Explorer if you're sure you want the Web Platform Installer to go about its business:

Then you'll be asked again, if you have UAC enabled:

Once you allow the program to run, you will see this introductory screen:

It says the download size is 8.51 MB, but that is a lie. To see the true download size, click on the "Items to be installed" link in the bottom left corner. You will see something like this:

My first observation here was that the local database runtime actually points to the SQL Express installer. It is not supposed to be a standalone instance, and it's interesting that they are finding a way to make Express support non-Express features that Juneau will have to support (e.g. partitioning).

When you click Install, you will be prompted (of course) to accept a license agreement. This screen also shows a summary of the items that are going to be downloaded and installed. You can click on the individual links to download each package and install them yourself, but I recommend against that because some need to be laid down in a specific order.

Once you accept, installation will begin. This took a surprising amount of time on my system (equipped with 8GB RAM and an SSD), even after all the downloading had finished.

(A funny observation here: this is my laptop, which I use for presenting, and it is yet another example where dialogs are not tested at non-default font settings - I have my fonts set to 125%, and the text no longer fits within the dialog.)

Depending on the state of your system (including Windows Updates), you can expect several reboots to be required during the installation of various Juneau prerequisites. If you have any failures installing the dependencies (which will prevent Juneau itself from being installed), you can try running their installers manually by clicking on the download links in the failure dialog - just make sure you run the Juneau installer last. I had a heck of a time installing the .NET Framework 4.0 update from KB #2468871 using the Web Platform Installer, but after running the EXE from the KB article manually, I finally had success:

I then re-applied Visual Studio 2010 Service Pack 1 (again), just to be on the safe side. Of course I had to clear out some space first, as this is on a tight SSD - the SP1 installer apparently needs close to 6 GB free just to run.

So now when I launch my BIDS shortcut, this is the splash screen I see:

Once I opened Juneau, my experience with connecting to a server and performing various operations has not been great, so I'll leave my evaluation and description of those things for another post.

SQL Server v.Next (Denali) : CTP3 Installation Walk-Through

AaronBertrand — Tue, 12 Jul 2011 13:07:00 GMT

In case you missed my previous post, you can now download CTP3. The delivery mechanism this time is a little different. Instead of downloading an ISO, you download a very small EXE, two .box files, and an HTML file that currently contains a set of links that aren't fully functional. You run the EXE by double-clicking it, and it extracts the box files into a folder in the same location called SQLFULL_x64_ENU:

Don't do what I did. In order to easily expose the CTP to all of my virtual machines (including Server Core), I took the four files and made an ISO file. When I tried the above process using the ISO file exposed to the VM as a DVD drive, it ran through the unloading process, then went away silently. I tried this a couple of times before I realized what was going on - Windows will not let you write output to a "DVD" - and that the unloading was being attempted in place (and I haven't examined the exe to determine if there are any arguments you could pass to tell it where to send the output - I tried /x, which is the argument used for cumulative updates, and that didn't work). I'm kind of surprised that there isn't a prompt for output location, and I'm absolutely amazed that the unloading process whistles along happily - with no error message or any indication whatsoever that it couldn't create the output folder or extract the files there.

Anyway, now I am off to make an ISO of the *result* of that operation. The lesson here is, copy the four files to a location where you have at least 6GB of free space, since you won't be able to run the command from one location and have it extract the contents to another.

[Also, please be sure to check out my notes on operating system support and prerequisites; also, consider installing Denali in a virtual machine, especially if you are worried about compatibility with your existing applications (Visual Studio, BIDS, etc.) or other instances of SQL Server.]

Once you have done that and you have your SQLFULL_x64_ENU folder ready, double-click SETUP.EXE. You will eventually be right back in to the SQL Server Installation Center you know and love. Click on the Installation tab (for any of the following screen shots, click on them to embiggen in a new window):

Then click on "New SQL Server stand-alone installation or add features to an existing installation" - you'll go through Setup Support Rules, which will hopefully all pass with flying colors:

(Remember to not close the Installation Center dialog until after setup is complete. This window needs to remain open as it keeps the temporary folder used by setup, though it can be minimized. See Connect #388671 for more details.)

Click OK. Next you will have the choice to enter a product key or choose a free edition. It is pre-selected to Evaluation edition:

Click Next. Check the box that says you accept the license terms. I would never suggest to not read them from start to finish, but I'll let you guess how long I spend on this screen. (I usually do uncheck the box about sending feature usage data to Microsoft.)

Click Next. The Install Setup Files dialog checks for updated setup files; is it possible this is the first clue that we are going to have automatic slipstreaming in Denali? I hope so:

Then shortly after my first "SQUEEEEE" moment, I get my first "BOOOOO" moment:

Click OK. Sheepishly. In fact, I implore you to click OK sheepishly. :-)

Now we see the Setup Support Rules dialog. Click Next unless you want to see the details (or any of the rules failed):

Next we choose the Installation Type. Since this is my first taste of CTP3, I will choose the [Perform a new installation of SQL Server "Denali" CTP3] option:

Click Next. n the Setup Role tab I'm going to keep things simple and choose the [SQL Server Feature Installation] option:

Click Next. On the Feature Selection tab, again for simplicity, I'm going to choose Database Engine Services, Books Online Components, and both Management Tools options (see more about Books Online toward the end of this post). I'm tempted to add DQS and Distributed Replay here, but my first instance is going to be pretty bare bones (note that if you have BIDS, Visual Studio, or Juneau from a previous CTP installed, you'll want to select as many of those options that seem relevant - most importantly Business Intelligence Development Studio):

Click Next. We'll let the Installation Rules succeed (unless you are unlucky):

Click Next. Now we select our instance name. I'm way beyond the ability to choose a default instance here, and I'm not all that creative:

Click Next. Simple summary screen showing disk space requirements. I clearly need to learn to build bigger VMs:

Click Next. You can change the service accounts and startup type on the Server Configuration tab. For local testing instances I rarely find it necessary to do this, especially during setup, since they can be configured later if need be. I also don't touch the Collation tab, leaving the default in place (though for pure development environments I will probably be getting more in the habit of switching to case sensitive):

Click Next. On the Database Engine Configuration screen, you can change to mixed authentication, add an sa password, and add yourself and other Windows accounts as SQL Server Administrators:

And on the Data Directories tab, you could change the location for new databases, tempdb and backups. On a normal system I would be changing these appropriately, but since I am on a VM with a single C:\ drive, I'm a little limited to what I can do to spread this I/O around. Thankfully I am not planning to do any heavy activity on my workstation:

I'm not going to use FILESTREAM for this instance, once again for simplicity, so I'm going to leave this tab alone. Click Next.

The Error Reporting dialog allows you to choose whether to send error reports to Microsoft. I'm going to leave this checked (though I unchecked it earlier in the beta cycle because I assumed there would be a lot more "that's already on the books to get fixed" type of exceptions):

Click Next. We get another rules screen, this time the Installation Configuration Rules screen. These might fail if you're still using FAT32, for example, so I can't imagine too many people will get blocked here:

Click Next. Finally we are at a summary screen which lists all of the options we've chosen and what SQL Server setup thinks it's going to try to do:

Click Install. Progress is indicated (you'll see various status message whiz by, faster than you can read them, for about 10 minutes - or less if you are on an SSD):

And finally, completion:

Click OK, click Close, and sheepishly (yes, sheepishly) reboot. Now you can launch Management Studio and start sniffing around:

Note that if you start sniffing around before you've rebooted, you may get some strange errors when trying to connect:

I know you're impatient, but just reboot. I also noticed that I had to manually start the service for the new CTP3 instance, even though it had been set to start automatically. Not sure if I just didn't wait long enough, but starting it manually worked fine.

Finally, I am finding the following error occurs when I try to launch a new query by right-clicking a database or server in Object Explorer and selecting New Query (if I try to modify an existing stored procedure, the dialog is identical, but it's a yellow exclamation point instead of a red x):

The error dialog is only slightly different (an additional top-level error message, and now it isn't an error, it's an informational dialog) if I try File > New >Database Engine Query:

And the error is once again an error, but still a slightly different dialog (I can no longer copy the text) if I use Ctrl + N or try to open an existing .sql file using File/Open:

For searchy goodness, here is the text of the error message:

TITLE: Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio
------------------------------
Failed to create new SQL Server script.
------------------------------
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:
Method not found: 'System.Collections.Generic.List`1<System.Object> Microsoft.SqlServer.Management.UI.VSIntegration.GenericUtilityView.get_OpenedEditors()'. (mscorlib)
------------------------------

I tried to fix this by re-applying Visual Studio Service Pack 1, as I had recommended in my previous post (once again, do as I say, not as I do). The SP1 update package complained about a missing silverlight_sdk.msi:

Microsoft Silverlight 4 SDK

The feature you are trying to use is on a network resource that is unavailable.

Someone should file a bug on this; the exclusion of this MSI file is especially annoying in this case because I don't care about the Silverlight SDK. Anyway, the fix: download the Silverlight 4 Tools, run the exe from a command line with the /x argument, specify a folder when prompted, and then you can point the SP1 installer at that folder. What a mess. And it gets even worse; I next got a similar complaint about WCF RIA Services V1.0 SP1 - like I'd know where to get that even if I knew what it was. One time, okay; I wasn't going to repeat this for who-knows-how-many files. So the real fix is: download the whole VS2010 SP1 ISO, mount it or extract it using your favorite utility, and point SP1 setup at that folder whenever prompted. Ugh. Again, what an absolute mess - and yes, yet another reboot. And for whatever reason, the re-application of SP1 took longer than the whole Denali install, including the time to take screen shots of every single dialog!

And I still have the same issue when launch a new query. *sigh*

(This only happened on the machine where I left CTP1 installed - because I wanted to easily compare DMVs and other things. I guess that plan is a bust.)

For some information about installing Books Online locally, in case I led you to believe that selecting the box above really installed Books Online, see this blog post from Geoff Hiten (@SQLCraftsman):

http://weblogs.sqlteam.com/geoffh/archive/2011/07/12/the-first-thing-you-will-hate-about-sql-denalihellip.aspx

Stay tuned for more posts about other tools (e.g. Juneau), changes to Books Online, and CTP3 engine features as I discover them.

SQL Server v.Next (Denali) : OS compatibility & upgrade support

AaronBertrand — Mon, 13 Jun 2011 13:49:00 GMT

Microsoft's Manageability PPM Dan Jones has asked for our feedback on their proposed list of supported operating systems and upgrade paths for the next version of SQL Server. (See the original post). This has generated all kinds of spirited debates on twitter, in protected mailing lists, and in private e-mail. If you're going to be involved in moving to Denali, you should be aware of these proposals and stay on top of the discussion until the results are in. (The media are starting to pick up on this as well, but don't be too afraid of hyper-sensationalized articles like this one.)

Operating System Compatibility

Dan has stated that they plan to support the following operating systems for Denali (and that setup would block on unsupported operating systems):

Windows Vista SP2+
Windows Server 2008 SP2+
Windows 7 SP1+
Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1+

I'm okay with this set of operating systems. Some (like Allan Hirt) feel that they should not support Windows Server 2008 at this point. Allan makes some good points, and that if you want to run failover clustering or on Server Core, Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 really is your only option. But since R2 is x64 only, knocking Windows Server 2008 off the list entirely would mean that there wouldn't be a legitimate home for 32-bit, standalone instances of SQL Server Denali in the data center (let's set aside any tempting jokes about running Vista or Win7 in production). While I'm all for giving 32-bit the kiss of death across the board, this would be a huge blocker for all those companies with investments in 32-bit hardware that is still going strong, and that can't justify the triple-whammy of upgrading their SQL Server licenses, Windows licenses and hardware all at the same time. In fact I suspect most of those still on Windows Server 2008 are only there because in order to move to Windows Server 2008 R2, they'd have to move to x64 hardware. As long in the tooth as x86 is, and as much as this would benefit everyone in many ways (aside from the pocket book), this may be a little rushed. If the goal is to do as little as possible to block Denali adoption, removing Windows Server 2008 from the list is not the best means.

I don't feel all that sympathetic to companies that are still running Windows Server 2003 in their data centers. The adage, "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" certainly can apply here, but there should be another adage that also applies, "if it ain't modern, don't break it." In other words, feel free to continue running Windows Server 2003 on those servers until they die, but don't expect to use those same servers for Denali and beyond. Especially since the end of mainstream support is on the near horizon, even for Windows Server 2008 (July 2013).

A much bigger point of contention here is that Windows XP is no longer on the list at all. I cheered a little when I saw that - let's recall that, by the time Denali is released, Windows XP will be more than 10 years old. In fact its birthday is coming up: it was released to OEM in August of 2001, and went retail in October of the same year. My house isn't 10 years old, I've never owned a car that long, and I'm having a hard time thinking of anything at all that I've owned for longer, other than timeless books and sentimental things. Certainly nothing in the technology sphere.

Yet there are companies out there still running Windows XP. There is a small faction of folks fighting for the "dinosaur" companies with staunch policies that dictate that every single desktop in the enterprise must be running the same operating system and, whether it is evidence of how hard that it is to manage, how stubborn these companies are, or how bad Vista really was, those companies are still running XP company-wide. So the complaint is that such a company is not able to move to Denali at all --- even though they will freely admit that there is no barrier to them moving to Denali in the data center --- because their DBAs and DB devs have no option to support or manage their SQL Server instances. My argument here is that very few such companies are going to sit on XP on the desktop for 10+ years, but be running bleeding edge software in their data centers. How many of these companies won't let their DBAs run anything newer than XP, but will be an early adopter for Denali? My guess is very few, and that there are plenty of ways to prevent desktop policies from interfering with migrations to Denali. My advice to these large companies with strict OS policies is to make one of these choices:

Don't move to Denali until you're ready
The decision might be to hold off until your desktop situation is in order. This option is obviously not in Microsoft's best interest, but in order to support XP, Microsoft would have to balance the potential loss here with the cost of achieving and validating proper XP compatibility. I'm not sure how it will be weighted; they will likely want to do everything they can to improve upon the adoption rates of SQL Server 2008 R2, for example, which have been sub-par (probably because it was far less appealing for most shops than Denali will be).
Allow exceptions
If you really want to take advantage of Denali, you have to make it easier for your DBAs and DB devs to manage the stuff. If they can't install Dev/Express editions or client tools on their desktops, you're going to make things very hard for them to do so. One option is to relax your stuffy rules and allow them to run a more modern OS. You may make things a little bit harder for your IT/tech support folks, but remember that not everyone in the company needs to run Denali (so complaints like "we'll have to upgrade thousands of desktops" carry little weight), and among your entire staff, the more technical folks are the ones usually requiring the least assistance from IT.
Give your DBAs and DB devs workarounds
If you need to move to Denali and your DB folks are forced to be stuck on XP with no tools to manage SQL Server Denali, make it easy for them to implement workarounds. For example:
Have dedicated jump machines in the data center where they can RDP to run management tools - RDP is horrible, but on dedicated machines this should be far more tolerable than RDPing directly to the server. I suspect though, soon enough, they will be complaining about the speed to the point that you will start considering other options.

Let them run VMs. Even on 32-bit XP they can run a more modern OS in a VM using Virtual PC, VMWare or VirtualBox - I do this all day since I choose to run Mac OS as my primary work environment. This may mean relaxing your supported software policy, but it means you can hold on to your primary operating system policy. One argument against this is for DBAs who can't figure out how to run a VM. Come on, seriously?

Empower them with the ability to use PowerShell (since it can perform many of the tasks they're used to pointing and clicking to achieve). Not that you're stopping them from doing this now, but make sure they are able to work with IT to be able to work against the data center with as few hoops and complications as possible (think firewall rules, domain trusts, and remote execution policies).

Dust off your SQL Server 2000 media, and let them install Query Analyzer (which doesn't check for up-level compatibility). I'm guessing they will moan about this huge step backwards, especially since Management Studio really is taking several steps forward with the Denali release.
Make it a mission to move everyone off of XP
This one kind of speaks for itself. Be proactive. Congratulations on holding out for 10 years, but you're not going to be able to run Windows XP forever. If you're not already thinking about how to make the move, be it one desktop at a time, your DBAs and DB devs first, or en masse, you're going to find yourself behind the 8-ball sooner than you might think. Microsoft can't be the only vendor thinking about dropping XP support, and when they do, they make it a whole lot easier for other vendors to follow suit.

While its longevity may, in and of itself, be saying great things about Windows XP, perpetuating support of this operating system makes things much more complex for Microsoft and for ISVs. To paraphrase a colleague, "the carrot hasn't worked, it's time for the stick." If you're still grasping XP, it really is time to start thinking about letting go, otherwise the world is going to move on without you.

Upgrade Paths

In the past, the upgrade paths from one version of SQL Server to another have always been expressed in terms of absolute version - yes, you can upgrade from SQL Server 2000 to SQL Server 2008; yes, you can upgrade from SQL Server 2005 to SQL Server 2008 R2. Now we have something slightly different, at least as well as I can remember --- upgrade paths to Denali don't just require a specific version, they require a specific version at a specific service pack level. Here is the preliminary list from Dan:

SQL Server 2005 SP4+
SQL Server 2008 SP2+
SQL Server 2008 R2 SP1+

In general I'm okay with this, but I'm having a real hard time understanding why SQL Server has to be at a specific service pack level before upgrading. Can't the upgrade include all of the bits required to take, say, 2005 SP2 -> 2005 SP4 -> Denali? I realize they may want to simplify the logic in the installer and keep the media size small, but I don't think that justifies all the extra work and time involved in making every customer *not* at the latest version get there first before running Denali setup. Never mind that for R2 customers, SP1 is not even out yet, and companies typically won't be installing SP1 on the day it comes out. Sure, some do, but definitely not all. Ideally, the list would look like this:

SQL Server 2005
SQL Server 2008
SQL Server 2008 R2

If they are going to insist on a minimum service pack level requirement, they better test all paths (including installing the required service pack immediately following by upgrading to Denali). And when there is an issue, the installer better make it very clear what the problem is, tell users how to resolve it, and do so early on - e.g. don't install just about everything and only fail / roll back the engine upgrade. But even with all that, I see these requirements as merely slowing adoption. If you are excited about Denali in any way, and are not at the above version/service pack levels, don't wait for the day of release --- start planning your migration paths now.

What about SQL Server 2000?
For those of you still on SQL Server 2000, it's been long established that Denali will not support upgrades or even direct migrations from SQL Server 2000. This includes backup / restore and detach / attach. What you will need to do in this case is either:
upgrade your 2000 instance to one of the supported versions above first, then upgrade to Denali;

back up your 2000 database, restore it to a 2005, 2008, or 2008 R2 instance, then back it up again from there, and restore it to Denali; or, similarly,

detach your 2000 database, attach it to a 2005, 2008 or 2008 R2 instance, then detach it from there, and attach it to Denali.

(Note that for the backup / detach options, if history is any indication, the specific SP requirement won't apply - you can detach a database from 2000 RTM, for example, and attach it to 2008 R2 CU7 without problem. The requirement is based on minimizing the in-place upgrade testing matrix.)

If you don't have any in-between licenses to do this, and are planning to use Evaluation Edition, do not go the in-place upgrade route --- I haven't tried it, but I'm fairly certain that you can neither upgrade from or upgrade to an Evaluation Edition instance. If you are going to use backup / restore or detach / attach, setting up a placeholder Evaluation Edition should be fine as a stepping stone.

There are other options as well, of course, that may be less resilient and will definitely require more work. For example, you could avoid the in-between hop by using any number of native or 3rd party data migration tools. Just remember that 80 compatibility mode is not supported in Denali, so it might be another story altogether to get your application working on the new version - even if you are currently running in 80 compatibility mode on SQL Server 2008 R2.

What can you do?

If you feel strongly about any of these issues, one way or the other, feel free to leave feedback here, but it will be most effective at Dan's blog post:

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/dtjones/archive/2011/06/10/sql-server-code-name-denali-supported-oses-and-upgrade-paths.aspx

Note that the points up for serious consideration are:

(a) whether to scratch Windows Server 2008 from the list;
(b) whether an in-place upgrade will require a specific service pack level; and,
(c) whether an in-place upgrade will actually completely block or simply warn in the case of an unsupported path.

These decisions aren't set in stone, and he's asking for your feedback. So again, if you have serious opinions about this, please don't sit back and then act mad and surprised when Denali comes out and you're not happy. :-)

Shameless Plug : Vote for my PASS submissions

AaronBertrand — Tue, 17 May 2011 12:02:00 GMT

I received a lot of grief at SQLRally when it was revealed that I have never submitted to speak at the annual PASS Summit. Well, this year, I did submit. So if you are planning on going, and you'd like to see me speak about SQL Server "Denali" or about Bad T-SQL Habits to Kick, please vote for my sessions here (login required):

http://www.sqlpass.org/summit/2011/Speakers/SessionPreferencing.aspx?spid=3

(Though after my feedback from SQL Bits, I wonder if I should change the title and abstract of my Denali session.)

Thanks in advance for your support! Voting closes on Friday, May 20th. Keep in mind that there are around 680 other sessions to vote for, so even if you're not interested in my sessions, you will probably be able to help the committee select other speakers by marking their sessions as preferred. In any case, I hope I'll see you at the Summit!

SQL Server v.Next (Denali) : When will Denali be released?

AaronBertrand — Mon, 16 May 2011 13:30:00 GMT

Every few days I see the following question being asked on #sqlhelp, on forums, or in person at various SQL-related events:

Q: When will Denali be released?

A barrage of similar questions actually occurs for every major release (and often for service packs of well) of just about every Microsoft product. And the answer never changes:

A: When it's ready.

I think they've learned from past events that if they announce too early, they find themselves committed to that date, even if complications mean the product isn't really ready. Take mirroring in SQL Server 2005; it wasn't officially supported until SP1, but they had to ship SQL Server when they did (or have to change the name). Now, that was an extreme case because they were already two years overdue, and the pressure to release was too great. But the same thing could happen today. That said, they do usually reveal the targeted date at a major event a couple of months in advance. When the first (and only, so far) CTP was released, it was made clear that the target date of Denali was Q4 2011 (so many assume it will, in fact, be called "SQL Server 2011"). So, if you change your question slightly to:

Q: When will we find out the Denali release date?

Then my answer can become:

A: Possibly at the PASS Summit (October 11-14, 2011).

No guarantees, of course. Nobody is trying to withhold information from you; we just don't have it - when we know, you'll also know. In the meantime, I am quite serious when I say, "your guess is as good as mine."

SQLRally slide deck & samples

AaronBertrand — Fri, 13 May 2011 18:43:00 GMT

Yesterday I spoke at SQLRally in Orlando on new engine and tools features in the next version of SQL Server - codenamed Denali. We nearly filled the room with 70+ people, and I got to hand out a slew of cool giveaways from the SQL Server team - coffee decanters, umbrellas, backpacks, and this cool recycled notebook modeled by Jason Strate (blog | twitter):

The deck and samples from my presentation are attached below. Please let me know if you have any questions!