Vote For SQL Server Service Packs

Brent Ozar Unlimited had a post recently noting that it appears Microsoft has seemed to move away from releasing service packs for SQL Server and instead is only releasing cumulative updates. Given that Microsoft itself warns against installing cumulative updates unless it solves a specific problem you are encountering, most DBAs, including myself, are somewhat […]

Troubleshooting SQL 2008 R2 SP2 Installation

Microsoft released SP2 for SQL Server 2008 R2 a couple weeks ago and I’ve been applying it to my servers. Most of the time it installed without problems, but I encountered a very puzzling error on one server. When I ran the service pack installation, I saw a DOS window pop and and disappear quickly […]

How To Apply Service Packs To SQL Servers Involved In Mirroring

I recently had to apply SQL Server 2008 SP2 to some of our SQL Servers, three of which are involved in a database mirroring configuration (as the principle, mirror, and monitor servers). Or so I thought. When I looked a bit deeper, I realized I mis-read my spreadsheet and the servers using mirroring were running […]