This week there was a security release for all supported versions of SQL Server. Each version has 32-bit and 64-bit patches, and each version has GDR (General Distribution Release) and QFE (Quick-Fix Engineering) patches. GDR should be applied if you are at the base (RTM or SP) build for your version, while QFE should be applied if you have ...

Last week, Microsoft released a series of patches for all supported versions of SQL Server (from SQL Server 2005 SP3 all the way to SQL Server 2008 R2). The reason for the patch against SQL Server installations is largely a client-side issue with the XML viewer application, and for SQL Server specifically, the exploit is limited to potential ...

It's patch Tuesday! [UPDATE June 19 : Please see my follow-up post about this security update.]  Today Microsoft released a security bulletin covering several issues that could potentially affect SQL Server; these exploits include remote code execution, denial of service, information disclosure and elevation of privilege. You should test ...

Yesterday, Microsoft released a Community Technology Preview (CTP) of SQL Server 2005 Service Pack 4. You can read about the release on the following blog post from SQL Release Services:http://blogs.msdn.com/b/sqlreleaseservices/...preview-available.aspxIf you don't want to read the blog post, you can go right to the download pages:SQL Server 2005 ...

Yesterday, a conversation on twitter reminded me that I haven't been keeping up with posting cumulative updates.  I missed these updates for SQL Server 2008 on March 15:Cumulative Update #7 for SQL Server 2008 SP1 (10.00.2766)Cumulative Update #10 for SQL Server 2008 RTM (10.00.1835) And yesterday Glenn Berry (blog | twitter) was the first I ...

Last week, Microsoft released Cumulative Update #8 for SQL Server 2005 SP3.  The build # is 9.00.4285.  You can read the blog post from the Release Services team here:http://blogs.msdn.com/sqlreleaseservices/archive/2010/02/15/cumulative-update-8-for-sql-server-2005-service-pack-3.aspxAnd the Knowledge Base article, #978915, is available ...

It used to be very difficult to obtain hotfixes for SQL Server (sometimes even to learn about their existence), and they were often unsupported.  They have made extremely great strides in this area, and in general, I find the new procedure much more convenient : just go to the KB article, select the fix(es) you want, and you get an almost ...

In our environment, we run the task scheduler as a cluster resource, so that scheduled tasks always run on the active node.  (In ancient history, we would have scheduled tasks that weren't cluster aware - in the event of a failover, we'd have to manually disable task scheduler on the now passive node, and manually enable it on the active ...