Upgrading a database with read-only filegroups Earlier today, I complained that I should be able to upgrade a database with read-only filegroups. In this case an upgrade from, say, 2000 to 2005 is blocked because the engine can't update the system schema...(read more)

Give us easier to read execution plans Michelle Ufford ( @SQLFool ) recently asked for help pinpointing the most expensive node(s) in a complicated execution plan. Mladen Prajdic ( @MladenPrajdic ) has a useful workaround; he coded up a quick query to...(read more)

Control over procedure cache We are still waiting for more control over procedure cache. Adam Machanic wrote up this blog post highlighting a Connect item which he opened in 2007. It is currently closed as ''won't fix'' but it's been shown time and time...(read more)

Like Hugo's immensely popular item pushing for SQL Server 2005 Service Pack 3 , Steve Jones has created suggestions prompting new service packs for both 2005 and 2008: #522122 : Service Pack 4 for SQL Server 2005 #522123 : SQL Server 2008 Service Pack...(read more)

Sorry I have been quiet recently; been working very hard for the past two weeks on a migration of an old, tried SQL Server 2005 database to a brand new 2008 cluster with faster SAN undercarriage, double the memory and twice as many CPUs. I'll blog more...(read more)

Can we improve on CHECKSUM()? Mike C# is not happy with the reliability of CHECKSUM() and asks for a better function that has less (or no) chance of collisions. #513376 : A Better Collision-Free Hash Function for Comparing Rows of Data Service termination...(read more)

Cart before the horse Last week, a fix for SQL Server 2008 SP1 CU #4 was quietly slipped into the CU4 download page. CU4 was build 10.0.2734, but you could have easily grabbed 10.0.2740 from the same download page without realizing it. Out-of-band public...(read more)

This week I've been at PASS , so haven't spent a whole lot of time digging into new Connect issues. There was one raised today where the new += syntax in SQL Server 2008 can cause a ''server error occurred'' exception: #508471 : Severe Error using += in...(read more)

Light helping this week. I am busy closing out a few projects (or at least chapters within projects) in preparation for PASS next week. ======================================== #506453 : Lock escalation no longer kicks in for INSERTs in SQL Server 2008...(read more)

Here is your weekly helping of Connect goodness. I added two items from the Connect connection, and an item from the Visual Studio connection. ================================================= #500228 : Default Data Location Not Being Written To Registry...(read more)