While trying to troubleshoot the mirroring timeout issues which was in milliseconds, came across recommendation by a MS engineer to enable NetSH, below are instructions on how to enable it and capture logs, the logs can be supplied to Network vendor for further analysis.   Run following command to enable Netsh   Netsh trace start capture=yes scenario=netconnection maxsize=2000 filemode=circular overwrite=yes report=no persistent=yes tracefile=c:\%computername%.etl   Note: Please make sure you place this on a drive which […]

Came across a unique issue on a friend’s laptop where he has high resolution screen but when trying to remote desktop any server then the remote server also inheriting the same resolution and text looks very small, MSTSC settings, desktop resolution settings, etc. everything is tried what possible but it didn’t fixed the issue. To resolve this, he found following solution to fix. Note: I am writing this post to keep a record of this […]

A good news for those who manage SQL releases, now CU updates are backed by Microsoft and one should not wait for SP releases, CU should be applied as early as possible,   https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/sqlreleaseservices/announcing-updates-to-the-sql-server-incremental-servicing-model-ism/   Updates to Cumulative Update Messaging and Guidance: Over the years, as we released CUs (Cumulative Updates), you have become familiar with a certain type of deterrent messaging around those updates. Examples like the below messages often lead DBA’s to plan […]

This Article covers the list of Free database and PowerShell tools I come across time to time, this list will keep growing as I discover them, leave comments if you like any one tool better than other.   SQL Server   Database Health – dashboard overview for quick database health checks (http://databasehealth.com) Idera Free tools for SQL server: https://www.idera.com/productssolutions/freetools, below are some of best which I like, they are not totally free but works for […]

While working on a simple data import from MySQL to MSSSQL, have to install MySQL as there is no workaround to import MySQL dump directly to SQL server, below are few commands used,   Note: There is no way you can EASILY import MySQL dump in .sql format directly to any other data source like MSSQL or Access DB, better to have MySQL installed locally and import MySQL dump there and then link it to […]

While trying to drop a linked server received following error,   Drop failed for LinkedServer ‘XYZ.ABC.COM’. (Microsoft.SqlServer.Smo)For help, click: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink?ProdName=Microsoft+SQL+Server&ProdVer=10.50.6000.34+((KJ_SP3).140819-1214+)&EvtSrc=Microsoft.SqlServer.Management.Smo.ExceptionTemplates.FailedOperationExceptionText&EvtID=Drop+LinkedServer&LinkId=20476—————————–ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:An exception occurred while executing a Transact-SQL statement or batch. (Microsoft.SqlServer.ConnectionInfo)——————————Cannot drop server ‘XYZ.ABC.COM’ because it is used as a Distributor in replication. (Microsoft SQL Server, Error: 20581)For help, click: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink?ProdName=Microsoft+SQL+Server&ProdVer=10.50.6525&EvtSrc=MSSQLServer&EvtID=20581&LinkId=20476 After going through online posts, found following script to drop distributor settings on Pinal Dave site (link),   EXEC sp_dropdistributor @no_checks = 1, @ignore_distributor = 1 […]

While configuring Linked server to oracle database from SQL server, faced following error,   Error: “ORA-12504: TNS: listener was not given the SERVICE_NAME in CONNECT_DATA” (Microsoft SQL Server Error: 7303)     I did following validation checks to ensure things are in place: Tnsnames.ora – validated that SID is present in tnsnames.ora file which is generally located in C:\Oracle\product\11.2.0\client_1\network\admin\ folder Validate syntax of connection string, it should be in below format, ORA123 = (DESCRIPTION = […]

Faced unique issue when updating my outlook desktop client (Outlook 2013) linked to outlook360 account, issue and fix is as below,   Issue: I created a new temp folder in my inbox and moved all my items including the items older than 6 months from inbox to temp, after 1 day again move them back to inbox, the number of emails remained same. I had to move again for some work but when I moved […]

TDE (Transparent Data Encryption) is an inbuilt encryption feature of SQL Server Enterprise Edition introduced by Microsoft from SQL server 2008 onwards, this comes in handy when someone has to secure the PII (Personal Identifiable Information) from prying eyes, as it is Enterprise Edition feature only hence comes with a premium price. So while I got a request to analyze implementation of it on more than 200+ SQL standard edition then first thing which has […]

While shrinking a large (950GB) database file to move data to a secondary NDF, got below 3140 error, it is a normal error occurs while shrinking files of that capacity, please find resolution below,   Error:   Environment: SQL Server 2005 ENT. ed.   Issue: Data file shrink fails for large data file size with Error: 3140   Fix: The following example query truncates the primary data file in the AdventureWorks2008R2 database. The sys.database_files catalog […]