Some notes about the SQL Server Service Pack Installation Engine. I like it - a lot. The new engine goes to great lengths to prevent my having to bounce a physical server to apply a service pack. No matter how you slice it, it takes less time to stop and restart a service than restart the server. You will reach a point in the installation where ...

Buck Woody has a great series going on SQL Server ManagementStudio Standard Reports. The SQL Server team did a great job developing these insightful and intuitive reports. I often show them to customers and during presentations and the response is always positive. :{> Andy

Ken Henderson blogs about some cool new utilities / tools for SQL Server: SQL Nexus, SQLDiag, and Retrace!  :{> Andy

Microsoft SQL Server 2000 SP4 mainstream support ends 8 April 2008 and - as of the datetime of this post - they are sticking with that date. That's 4 months and 3 days from today. There are still a lot of SQL Server 2000 instances out there... :{> Andy