Whenever I need to work on a new laptop or server, or whenever I change versions of SQL Server Management Studio, I kick myself for not remembering to export my settings, so I can import them again.
I spend quite a bit of effort getting SSMS configured the way I want, so it only makes sense to save the settings. Saving them isn’t perfect but it’s far better than not having done it.
2025-06-06
This is a post in the SQL Interview series. These aren’t trick or gotcha questions, they’re just questions designed to scope out a candidate’s knowledge around SQL Server and Azure SQL Database.
Section: Security Level: Advanced
Question:
You have a table named Sales.Customers that is owned by dbo. You also have a stored procedure named Sales.FindCustomers that searches the Sales.Customers table.
A user Terry is given permission to the procedure and can successfully execute the procedure.
2025-06-05
The status bar at the bottom of a query window in SQL Server Management Studio contains a wealth of information in its default configuration. The bottom left shows the connection state:
And the bottom right shows quite a bit:
In this case, it’s showing me that I’m connected to a server (local)\SQL2022; it’s running v16 of SQL Server (ie: SQL Server 2022); I’m logged on as GREG7680\Greg; my SPID (or session ID) is 88; and I’m connected to the WideWorldImporters database.
2025-06-04
I’ve been very lucky over the years because I haven’t needed to wear glasses. Every now and then I purchase a pair because I thought it might help with reading. Once I get them though, I find them more inconvenient than helpful and stop using them. I’ve am long-sighted in one eye and short-sighted in the other. That’s turned out to be a really useful thing in day to day life.
2025-06-02
This is a post in the SQL Interview series. These aren’t trick or gotcha questions, they’re just questions designed to scope out a candidate’s knowledge around SQL Server and Azure SQL Database.
Section: Administrator Level: Medium
Question:
You have an ETL process that loads employee details into a table named Staging.Employees. The table has the following columns:
The table is a heap and has no primary key.
2025-06-01
The built-in reports in SQL Server Management Studio are great but you can add your own as well. SQL Server 2005 and later have an option for Custom Reports. Let’s create a report that shows the use of deprecated data types. We’ll use a stored procedure from our free SDU Tools to do that. In SQL Server Data Tools, create a new Report Server project.
Give the project an appropriate name and location, then click Create.
2025-05-31
SQL Server Management Studio provides a large amount of information about databases by letting the user navigate around Object Explorer and view the properties of objects.
What I’m often surprized by though, is the number of users who haven’t ever explored the reports that are available. In another section, we’ll look at creating custom reports, but there is a wonderful set of built-in standard reports that you should explore. For example, if I right-click the WideWorldImporters database, I can see these reports:
2025-05-29
This is a post in the SQL Interview series. These aren’t trick or gotcha questions, they’re just questions designed to scope out a candidate’s knowledge around SQL Server and Azure SQL Database.
Section: Developer Level: Medium
Question:
You are creating a view in a SQL Server based data warehouse.
You need to query transactions that include a TransactionDateTime column which uses the DateTime data type. The query is as follows:
2025-05-28
In early versions of SQL Server, the only way to try to track dependencies between tables, procedures, functions, etc. was to use the sp_depends stored procedure.
And everyone thought it lied.
The real problem was that it didn’t understand partial dependencies and deferred resolution of objects. For example, it got confused if you created a procedure that mentioned a table, then later created the table.
SQL Server 2012 introduced far superior dependency views, and SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) shows dependencies using those views under the covers.
2025-05-27
I don’t use the table designer in SQL Server Management Studio. Sorry, but I just don’t like it, or the options that it chooses for me. I’d rather use T-SQL every time, but I’m also the first to admit that there are plenty of people who would use that designer.
And when they do, many run into an error that says:
Saving changes is not permitted. The changes that you have made require the following tables to be dropped and re-created. You have either made changes to a table that can’t be re-created or enabled the option Prevent saving changes that require the table to be re-created.
2025-05-25
