When you run a distributed transaction against an instance of SQL Server, you may receive an error message that is similar to the following: Server: Msg 7391, Level 16, State 1, Line 1 The operation could not be performed because the OLE DB provider ‘SQLOLEDB’ was unable to begin a distributed t

(Dale Elizabeth Corey) Okay, I admit it. Before I became an SQL Server 2000 DBA, I was bottlefed on Microsoft Access. When it came to building complex queries with joins, I became an expert on Access’s Grid Manager, formally known as a form of Query By Example (QBE) developed by IBM’s Dr. Zloof in t

(William Pearson) In this article, we will introduce two further considerations within the Managing phase of the reporting lifecycle: the execution of reports (including viewing options), and the creation and maintenance of standard subscriptions. We will review the process of running reports, p

(Lisa Vaas) The newly announced native database encryption in SQL Server 2005 is a win for customers, but it doesn’t necessarily make Oracle and IBM the ‘Hyundais’ of encryption.

(Rich Rollman) When I need to obtain an XML query result from my database, FOR XML is usually the first solution I try. Introduced in SQL Server 2000, FOR XML provides three modes—Raw, Auto, and Explicit—for formatting the XML query result. (For details about these modes, see Dave Hulse’s August 200

(Barbara Darrow) In the absence of the much-anticipated second beta of SQL Server 2005, Microsoft continues to crank out tidbits of news. Microsoft on Wednesday plans to offer downloads of the Business Scorecard Accelerator software, designed to help SQL Server customers create scorecards that m

You may not be able to connect to an instance of Microsoft SQL Server 7.0, to an instance of Microsoft SQL Server 2000, or to an instance of Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Desktop Engine (also known as MSDE 2000), and you may receive one of the following error messages.

(MAK) This function finds all the numbers in a string. (script)

(Steve Jones) This is a true story and is intended as a case study in showing how I actually recovered from a disaster. As close as I can remember, I am writing this from memory the night of the events, so I think it is fairly accurate. As I’ve said many times, one should always take notes, but I ha

(Eric Brown) The next version of SQL Server, code-named “Yukon,” includes quite a few enhancements and expanded language support. For example, Transact-SQL now conforms more closely to the ANSI-99 SQL specification and makes querying more flexible and expressive. Yukon can execute user-defined funct