SQL Vulnerability Assessment was available in older SSMS releases. My walkthrough used SSMS 17.4 with SQL Server 2012 or later.
Restart Azure SQL Database: What Works and What Doesn’t
You can’t restart Azure SQL Database the way you restart SQL Server, because Microsoft runs the service. This post shows what to do instead: find and end the blocking session, scale the database, or trigger a failover. It tests the blocking query on a demo database and explains why a stack dump is not a restart.
How to List Queries With Memory Grant and Execution Plan? – Interview Question of the Week #154
A workshop customer suspected one of their queries used too much memory. Here is the script I gave them to list running queries with Memory Grant and plan.
SQL SERVER – Account Added Automatically in SQL Server Used by SharePoint
A departed user’s account kept being added automatically to SharePoint database roles. How to catch who adds it, and from where, on SQL Server 2025.
SQL SERVER – xp_cmdshell and Net Use ERROR: The Local Device Name is Already in Use
Mapping a share with net use through xp_cmdshell, I hit “The local device name is already in use”. Here is what causes this error and how to solve it.
SQL SERVER – Linked Server Error: TCP Provider: No Connection Could be Made Because the Target Machine Actively Refused It
Creating a linked server failed its connection test: No connection could be made because the target machine actively refused it. Here is what to check.
SQL SERVER – The SaveToSQLServer Method Has Encountered OLE DB Error Code 0x80004005
While saving maintenance plan on my lab server, I encountered below error in SQL Server Management Studio. Let us see how to solve the error related to OLE DB Error.