I already had a table with values in that I wanted to capture via INSERT statements, so that I could chop and change the values as needed.

There is a method in SQL Management Studio 2008 (SSMS) that allows you to create these statements right out of the box for SQL Server 2008, without using any scripts or add-ins from SSMS.

So, for example,  to create the INSERT statements for the Table: HumanResources.Department in the AdventureWorks database.          (Note: Click on images to enlarge)

Right Click on the Database Name, select Tasks|Generate Scripts…

Click the Next button on the “Generate and Publish Scripts” dialog box that appears.

From the “Choose Objects” screen, select the table from drop down menu. We are doing this for a single table, but as you can see you can do this for multiple objects or the entire database.

Click Next.

On the next screen, decide where you wish to output the script to. I chose a “new query window” in my example.

Then Press the Advanced Button.

From the Advanced Scripting Options dialog, select the Drop-down options for the “Types of data to script” option.  You can choose (i) Data Only (ii) Schema and data or (iii) Schema only

Click OK, and then select the Next Button. Click the Next button again from the next screen and then the Finish button after the task has completed

In this example, the CREATE TABLE and INSERT statements appear for my chosen database table within a new query window in SSMS.

I can now extract and edit the INSERT statements, as required, to create new or different test data for my SSIS project.

Here’s how you can do it in PPT 2007

Set Transparent Colour In Pictures or Clip Art in Powerpoint 2007

I’m sure this can be done in other version of Powerpoint, just search for the Set Transparent colour tool.

Enjoy.

Steps as follows: (Click on image to enlarge)

You can then select the image and paste into your document etc.

I carried out the following steps, which improved my shutdown time to mere seconds. Note the solution involves editing registry entries, which you do at your own risk, so take a backup beforehand.

1: To determine where the issue lay, go to your Control Panel and select Performance Information and Tools.  From the pane on the left select “Advanced Tools”.

2: From the options that appear select View performance details in Event Log.

3: Look for Error and Warnings related to the “Shutdown Performance Monitoring” task for more information.

Event Viewer Shutdown Performance

In my case, as you can see from the image, my total shutdown time was 79935ms or 79.935 seconds. Other entries showed over twice this long.

The main point though, is that in this case 69.532 seconds, or 87% of the shutdown time was related to the “ShutdownKernelTime”.

4: To resolve this I updated the following registry entries.

(Note:  Update the registry at your own risk. You may want to back it up prior to editing it. Run regedit.exe, select FILE, then Export… and then name and save the file to your desired location. Ensure the “Export range” Option is set to All.)

Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control  and change the “WaitToKillServiceTimeout” to 1000. Where 1000 represents 1 second.

Go to  HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management  and change the ClearPageFileAtShutdown data value to 0

ClearPageAtShutdown

You may have to use the registry search (Edit|Find) to see if these Values exist at other Key locations and edit accordingly.

If you ever wish to reset the ClearPageFileAtShutdown Value look here: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314834

After applying these steps my shutdown time went to only a few seconds.

Hope this helps.

I took the following steps to resolve the issue.

1:  Turn off / Disable any Anti-Virus and Firewall software. I had “Symantec EndPoint Protection”.

2:  Reboot machine into Safe Mode using F8 on restart.

3:  Select “Run” from the Start menu and type %windir%

(Tip: You can also access the Run command by pressing the Windows logo key +R)

4:  Find and Rename Folder SoftwareDistribution to say, SoftwareDistribution_old

5:  Reboot machine into normal windows mode

6:  Run Windows update.

7:  Re-enable Anti-virus and Firewall software.

This seemed to fix the problem for me. Hope it helps

Whilst at a client site, I was asked whether you could stop (disable) a users Report Subscription based upon an external event, such as another SQL Agent Job or Task outcome, such as failing.

The approach I took to demonstrate how you could achieve this was to create another SQL Agent Job which “enabled” the users Report Subscription Job, based upon the occurrence of a “flag” record in another table. This table could easily be created by the calling control job, or a prior job step.

Steps

Here we can see a Report Subscription that has been created by a user: (click on any image for full-size view)

Subscription Details:

The job is set to run at 19:12.

Using SSMS (SQL Server Management Studio) and connecting to the Database that the “ReportServer” database resides on,  we can use the “Job Activity Monitor” to see the Job that was automatically created for this subcription.

Job Name: A48C0610-4A9F-4847-97E2-BAF7798DEE0C

We can write a SQL Script to view the Job Details:

USE msdb

SELECT *
FROM msdb.dbo.sysjobs
WHERE name = ‘A48C0610-4A9F-4847-97E2-BAF7798DEE0C’

To view the Details of all the Jobs on the Server we can use the following script:

USE msdb

GO

SELECT Getdate() AS ‘ExecutionTime’

GO

SELECT @@SERVERNAME AS ‘SQLServerInstance’

GO

SELECT j.[name] AS ‘JobName’,
enabled = CASE
WHEN j.enabled = 0 THEN ‘No’
ELSE ‘Yes’
END,
l.[name] AS ‘OwnerName’
FROM msdb.dbo.sysjobs j
INNER JOIN MASTER.dbo.syslogins l
ON j.owner_sid = l.sid
ORDER BY j.[name]

GO

Script to Enable/Disable Job

/* script to disable by job */
EXEC msdb.dbo.Sp_update_job
@job_name = ‘A48C0610-4A9F-4847-97E2-BAF7798DEE0C’,
@enabled = 0; — 0 to disable 1 to enable
GO

Therefore, we could setup another SQL Job, which will run this script dependant upon some logical condition. i.e. where a certain value or number of records exists in a table, etc.

To enable/disable the job based upon say records, in a table, adapt the following script accordingly to your requirements. I have used a temporary table to demonstrate the principle.

 /* script to enable(1) or disable(0) by job based upon records in table @flagtable */
USE msdb 

DECLARE @flagtable TABLE (
 flag INT)
DECLARE @DoIt INT 

SET @DoIt = 0 

-- let?s add a record to this table for test purposed. To Disable the Job we would comment out the following two rows
INSERT INTO @flagtable
 (flag)
VALUES (1) 

-- so lets say we will enable the job if a record exists in the @flagtable
SELECT @DoIt = COUNT(*)
FROM @flagtable 

/* script to enable(1) or disable(0) by job based upon records in set @flagtable */
EXEC msdb.dbo.Sp_update_job
 @job_name = 'A48C0610-4A9F-4847-97E2-BAF7798DEE0C',
 @enabled = @DoIt; 

GO 

Script to DISABLE the SQL Agent Job as @DoIt = 0

Script to ENABLE the SQL Agent Job as @DoIt = 1

So, to automate this task we can set up a new SQL Agent Job to run this script as shown;

Create the following Step, and add the T-SQL to enable or disable the Job as required.

Hence, if  more than 1 record exists in our “flag” table, it will ENABLE the Report subscription Job.

If no records exist in the “Flag” table, the Report Subscription Job will be set to Enabled = No (i.e. Disabled).

Remember, you will use your own logic to set the @DoIt parameter based upon your own requirements.

You can run this Job Manually or on a Scheduled as required:

Conclusion

Though I applied this to a Report Subscription Job, it could easily be adapted for other types of Jobs.

The beauty of it is that the original Job and its associated schedule timings remain unaltered. All we are doing is disabling/enabling the Job as necessary.

You have a Reporting Services report viewed via a browser that has a drill-through to another report. When the drill through report is opened, you would like the user to be able to “jump back” to the previous parent report page. Users can use the browsers back button to do this, but you would like to place a more obvious link on the Report.

Solution

The following report was created using BIDS for SQL Server 2008. The same method can be employed for the 2005 version, though the dialog boxes may appear slightly different.

Open your drill- through report (i.e. the report you will be drilling to, from another ssrs report) and add a text box, which you can format to look like a button, if you wish.

After Adding the Textbox, View its Properties (right-click on textbox).

In the Textbox Properties Dialog box, Select Action, and check “Go to URL”

Enter   javascript:history.back(1) in the entry box, then press OK.

When you deploy the report, and view it in your browser, the user only has to click on the “button” (Go Back)  to be returned to the previous browser page, which would be the parent report.

In the Firefox address bar type about:config and press enter. If prompted, “promise to be careful” at the warning screen.

Now, anywhere in the browser window, right-click and select “New”, followed by “String”.

Call the new string nglayout.initialpaint.delay and set its sting value to 0 milliseconds.

You can also increase the number of multiple connections to the server that is hosting the website you want to look at, to speed up your download time to render the page content.

You can tweak Firefox to increase the number of default connections from 4 to a higher number up to say 128.

Assuming you are still in the “about:config” browser page, find the entries network.http.pipelining and network.http.proxy.pipelining. Double-click both to change their false value to True.

Now double-click the entry network.http.pipelining.max.requests to a higher number, say 30, and click OK.

Close and re-open Firefox to start noticing the effects of your changes.

1: Brian Cryer’s SQL Crib Sheet

2: Free Ebook (at time of writing) :  SQL Server Crib-Sheet Compendium alternatively from here

3: SQL Tutorials  – Try here,  here or here, plus here or others from Google

4: Intro to SQL (4.71)

5: Interactive SQL tutorial

6: Free Ebooks – e.g. Teach yourself SQL can be found here

Other useful tools include:

SQL Formatter: Use sqlparser.com to convert any SQL into a readable and colorful style