Home / server / Questions / 164732
In Process
user48642
Asked: 2010-07-29 00:54:31 +0800 CST

Can SQL Server 2008 Linked Servers be edited? Is there the equivalent of an ALTER statement for Linked Servers?

  • 772

I have a Linked Server which was made using SQL Server Management Studio 2008.

If the linked server destination changes, I will have to change the properties of it to direct to the right place.

But I cannot - there is no edit option!

Am i missing something, or can Linked Servers not be altered?

sql-server-2008 linked-server

4 Answers

  1. Yes, you are right. Linked server name cannot be modified. It needs to be dropped and recreated in case the server name changes.

    • 2

  2. You can't modify a Linked Server

    But if you right click the server in Management Studio and then:

    Script Linked Server As > DROP and CREATE to > New Query Editor Window

    You can make changes to the script and it's almost the same workflow as using ALTER

    • 1

  3. The ability to edit them left around SQL 2000 or SQL 2005, now they have to be dropped and re-created.

    • 0

  4. Check out sp_setnetname. You can use it to change the data_source of the linked server (destination), e.g.:

    DECLARE @name sysname = 'SRVRNAME';
DECLARE @datasource sysname = 'srvr.name.com';

EXECute sp_setnetname @server = @name, @netname = @datasource;
    • 0