SQL Server 2008 introduced a new feature that had the potential to be very useful, the ability to color colour-code a query window in SSMS to represent the server that was being connected to. This was configured using the properties of a server in the Registered Servers pane: Unfortunately this feature was made less than useful, dangerous ...

I have been on a SQL Server Parallel Data Warehouse (aka PDW) training course this week and was interested to learn that you can't (yet) use SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) against PDW, instead they ship a 3rd party tool called Nexus Chameleon. This was a bit of a disappointment at the beginning of the week (I'd prefer parity across SQL Server ...

Recently Dave Ballantyne posted a list of free resources for SQL Server, entitled ''The best things in life are free.''  Now, I'm not trying to upstage Dave, but I know of several resources that aren't on his list.  It would be good to have a true community page for this kind of thing, but for now a blog post will have to do.  [I ...

Introduction I've been meaning to blog about this for a while and a question from a team member prompted this post (thanks Allan!) SSMS Scripting Options In SSMS you can script a stored procedure - right-click a stored procedure, hover over Script Stored Procedure As, hover over Create To, and select New Query Editor Window:   Sometimes ...

This is my contribution to the T-SQL Tuesday blog party, started by Adam Machanic and  hosted this month by Aaron Nelson.  Aaron announced this month's topic is ''reporting'' so I figured I'd throw a blog up on a reporting topic I've been interested in for a while -- namely creating custom reports in SSMS. Creating SSMS custom ...

Here’s a nifty little SSMS trick that my colleague Tom Hunter educated me on the other day and I thought it was worth sharing. If you’re a keyboard shortcut junkie then you’ll love it. How often when working with code in SSMS that contains temp tables do you see the following message: Msg 2714, Level 16, State 6, Line 78 There is ...

Most data professionals I’ve met work in two modes: we plan for our day, and we react to the situations around us. I’m staring at my list of things that I need to do today right now, which is my planned work. Of course, I have no idea how much of that will really get done – it’s optimistic to be sure. On the other hand I have several systems I ...

SQL Server contains many “Wizards. Wizards are simply programs that collect information based on user choices. The Wizard’s screens explain each step and the choices on that screen. Based on those answers collected from the user, the Wizard performs some task. What could possibly be wrong with helping a user this way? Well, plenty. Wizards hide ...

I have scripts that re-create my databases for testing and development purposes. But sometimes I want to take the data from a set of tables and move it as well – I could use SSIS, or a SELECT INTO statement, but what if I want to “re-set” the data to a point in time? In other words, load it with some “base data”? I thought this might be a good ...

Yesterday I blogged about changing a Primary Key (PK) during the design phase, and before you have data in the database. Even then, it’s not trivial to change the data type or column(s) that make(s) up the PK. When you have data in that Primary Key and/or you have Foreign Keys (FK) that point to a PK field, this becomes a much more involved ...