Stuart Ainsworth discusses NOLOCK, dirty reads and safer alternatives. A two-session example shows why uncommitted results can be misleading.
Generating Test Data That Behaves Like the Real Thing
Make test data generation reflect skew, row width, missing values, and key relationships so your SQL Server experiments expose realistic plan risks.
SQL SERVER – syspolicy_purge_history job failing step: Erase Phantom System Health Records
A client’s syspolicy_purge_history job kept failing at the step Erase Phantom System Health Records. Here is what the job does and how to fix the failure.
SQL SERVER – Setup Closed with Exit Code 0x80004005
Setup for SQL Server 2008 R2 SP3 closed with exit code 0x80004005 and wrote no summary log. Here is where to find sqlsetup.log in %TEMP% and what it showed.
SQL SERVER – Exception Code c0000005 While Starting SQL Service
A reader’s SQL Server would not start and wrote no ERRORLOG. Starting it from the command prompt showed Exception Code c0000005. Here is how we found the cause.
SQL SERVER – Management Studio – Changing Status Bar Location
Color coding the SSMS status bar helps avoid mistakes, but on a big screen it is easy to miss at the bottom. Here is how to change the Status Bar Location.
SQL SERVER – Where is Rows Affected in Output?
SSMS showed the rows affected message, but SQLCMD on one instance did not. Here is the configuration option behind it and where you can change it.