I recently came across a reporting server whose memory was a touch too low and would cause a particularly large report to sometimes fail to execute to completion.

Note: This applies largely to ring buffers, not trace files.

Every now and again I'll come across a SQL Server 2000 install which hasn't been touched in forever and has no maintenance scheduled, and I have to clear up the backup history tables manually.

When you copy a database from one server to another one of the common tasks is to run sys.sp_change_users_login 'Report' and verify that there are no unexpected orphaned users; which occurs when a sys.database_principal (user) doesn't have a matching sys.server_principal (login).

Controlling WMI timeout behaviour becomes very important when you're parallelising queries across hundreds of servers. Even though other queries may execute quickly when one server fails to respond WMI can hang indefinitely and stop any further processing in its tracks.

After server patching you might find that the Reporting Services service will fail to start; not just SQL 2005 but others too. This is described in a Microsoft knowledge base article. The problem is that applying those instructions is a manual and error prone process.

I set up a new lab environment for SQL Server recently and wanted to use some of the new Windows Server technologies I hadn't tried before… which isn't that unusual because I'm a DBA not a sysadmin.

As a DBA it can be difficult to gain access to a SQL Server instance you are authorised (and indeed required) to support.

There is a myth that modifications to tempdb do not take effect until you restart the instance, understandably people have read the message that will be printed during many changes. But with careful planning the message and the restarts can be avoided and many changes can instead be made to take effect immediately.

It's easy to trigger a lot of obscure errors with SQL Server Agent when scheduling an SSIS package to run within a job. The key problems occur when you override connection strings within the GUI.

I've started listening to the SQL Down Under Podcast from Episode 01 onwards and it has been boggling my mind the amazing grip on SQL Server these MVPs had a decade ago… sometimes even more than me today! Plus they sure seemed to revere SQL Server 7 a lot!

Updated 2016-02-09:While tracing a server today I saw some queries being sent from SCOM accessing a table which is not documented below. I've written a note about it on the TechNet forums but you may want to grant access to msdb.dbo.syspolicy_policy_execution_history_details_internal in addition to what I've listed below until it's fixed.

Master Data Services must be run under a domain account and the credentials provided are used (in part) by configuring an IIS Application Pool to use them; which means one day the passwords are likely going to expire and need to be reset in IIS.

After server patching you might find that the Integration Services service will fail to start; not just SQL 2005 SP1 but others too. This is described in a Microsoft knowledge base article. The problem is that applying those instructions is a manual and error prone process.

There are two invaluable references on how to slipstream SQL Server 2008 R2 service packs and cumulative updates.

In PowerShell if you have output a CSV (comma separated values) file and open it Excel only to see it all munged onto one line, then you're probably using the Out-File cmdlet instead of Set-Content.

Updated 29 Jul 2015: Improved property name matching in the script and added an additional recommended settings spreadsheet.