Chris Burgess's questions

Let's say I have a 'MyDB' SQL Server 2005 database (simple recovery) in which I do a Full backup on Sunday, and Differentials every other night

BACKUP DATABASE [MyDB] TO DISK = N'c:\Database Backups\MyDB\MyDB_Full.bak'
    WITH NOFORMAT, INIT, NAME = N'MyDB.BAK', SKIP, NOREWIND, NOUNLOAD, STATS =
    10

and

BACKUP DATABASE [MyDB] TO DISK = N'c:\Database Backups\MyDB\MyDB_Diff.bak'
    WITH NOINIT, DIFFERENTIAL, NAME= 'MyDB.BAK', STATS= 10

What does the differential backup process use to decide what data gets backed up on the differential nights? Does it need the mydb_full.bak file to do its business?

If I wanted to save disk space, could I zip up the mydb_full.bak file to a .zip file after it's created without adversely affecting the differential backups, and if I needed to restore, just unzip the full backup before starting?

When I'm viewing the job history of a particular SQL Agent Job, I typically want to see whether it succeeded, its duration and maybe the duration of the individual steps of the job.

When I open the history in the Log File Viewer, I always need to scroll over and shrink the 'Message' column and drag the 'Duration' column over next to the 'Step Name' column.

Is there a way to configure the layout of the Log File Viewer (e.g. reposition columns, resize columns) and save it for future sessions?

Thanks!

I have a single row in a table that seems to be corrupt. It has an identity field called ID, and I can select where ID < 337 or ID > 337, but not ID = 337.

I ran DBCC CHECKTABLE and DBCC CHECKDB on the DB, table and PK index (the only index on the table) and it did not find anything.

I also tried to drop and recreate the index but this execution just hung and never came back after several minutes. Rebuild fails, too, or rather it just hangs.

I've created a new table with all the records except for 337, so I can get it back to almost normal, but I'd like to know if there is anything I should be doing to identify and fix the problem.

Update: I am unable to add a second index to the table on a different field because it times out when I try.

Update2: I'm unable to rename the table, and all these actions show BlkBy -2, which I don't don't recognize.

Thanks!

How do I export a list of all groups and the users who are members of each of the groups on a Windows 2003 server?

Thanks

Is there an easy way to list out the permissions granted to a folder (and sub folders) on a Windows 2003 server? I want to know which users/groups have what permissions for c:\myfolder and all the folders within it.

Thanks

I have an app that is used by people in the US and in China and the database sits in the US. The people using it in China complain that the performance is poor, so I was thinking of using SQL Server Replication and put a database server in China, too.

However, when I mention this to other people, they get all, "are you crazy? you're gonna lose data! the data is gonna become corrupted".

Are there major concerns with SQL Server replication that should cause me to avoid this technology in mission critical apps?

What is the Event ID code in the Windows Event Viewer that will tell me:

Server has started IIS has started

Is there a place online where I can look these things up?

Thanks!

Chris

Is there a way to identify processes that were blocking or were blocked by another process after the fact without setting something up ahead of time?

My weekly maintenance job (rebuild indexes, update stats) ran extremely long. I'm thinking that it was trying to work on something and encountered blocking to prevent it from continuing, but I don't know what that might be.

Thanks!

For my backup plan for SQL Server 2005, I want to do a full on Sunday:

BACKUP DATABASE myDatabase TO DISK = 'D:\Database Backups\myDatabase_full.bak' WITH FORMAT
GO

Then I want to do a differential nightly the rest of the week:

BACKUP DATABASE myDatabase  TO DISK = 'D:\Database Backups\myDatabase_Diff.bak' WITH DIFFERENTIAL
GO

My assumption was that if there was little/no activity in the database, then the differential would not increase in size (or wouldn't increase by much).

However, when I run the differential backup above (with little or no activity), I'm seeing the differential backup increase by megs at a time. Why is it increasing like that?

Thanks