JohnnyReaction back from the pub

This was hell; it repeatedly failed for no obvious reason and the error messages were not very helpful.

After much hair pulling and gnashing of teeth, my solution was to uninstall the following manually in this order (Control Panel, Add/Remove Programs):

1. MS Office (yes, I know!)
2. SQL 2008 MS Visual Studio Shell
3. MS Visual Project Aggregator2 (see 1 above)
4. MS Document Explorer 2008
5. MS Report Viewer Redistributable 2008 SP1
6. MS SQL Server Compact 3.5 SP2 ENU
7. MS SQL Server Compact 3.5 SP2 Query Tools ENU
8.  MS SQL Server Compact 3.5 SP1
9. MS.NET Framework 3.5 SP1

Then I ran a tool called MS  Visual Studio Uninstall Betas, this file is called vs_uninst_betas.exe, currently available at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=47598

Then the VS Studio 2008 install just worked, like it should have done in the first place.

Why can’t Microsoft have an installation routine which optionally removes any blockages first?

You now have Bill Gates’ permission to reinstall any software you still need from the list above.

Crumbs!

It’s 3 o’clock in the morning and I have to be at my desk 50 miles away at 9.

I have booked a few days in Herefordshire and Market Bosworth doing what we like to do best, eating and drinking.

We might even attempt a couple of walks in the countryside.

http://www.yeoldferrieinn.com/

http://www.theoldclubhousebedandbreakfast.co.uk/

Now I am about to start on the SQL 2008 exams.

Still, it makes the world look pretty. Soon be Christmas!

I just had to have one of my cats, Smudge, on the right, put to sleep because she became ill with a chest tumour.

I am not prone to being over sentimental but however hard I may think I have become I can never simply ignore the profound sadness this brings.

I’m just getting old!

Just upgraded my Internet connection to Virgin 50MB broadband.  I can’t say that I have noticed a difference yet.

Probably when I shift a big file it’ll be a bit quicker.

Hence the picture:

It was quite quick to upload, after all.

This is where my lips swell up quite alarmingly.

Think Mick Jagger. 

What fun! It started over 24 hours ago and this is the look after it has all settled down a bit. 

I must remember to take an antihistamine pill every day from now on

Is it me?

So, once again we reach Friday night. It’s my wedding anniversary, too , on the 15th and I haven’t yet booked a restaurant. I have to finish the decorating, strip down, clean and restring my new electric guitar, put all my tools in the loft, build a new PC, clean the cars and tidy up the garden. Oh yes and learn SQL 2005 /2008 and Business Intelligence. Yep – and build a website. Oh, and balance the books. What shall I do with all my spare time, then?

After severalteen pints of Westons cider I love to play.

This is the rapid race to consume  three pickled eggs of varying ferocity (we have ”vicious”, “suicide” and “dragon’s” eggs, the latter prepared with hot peppers)  speared with a pepperami stick (the black ones out of the fire safe – the hotter the better). 

Then quaff another pint or ten without hurling.

What fun.

I’m twelve.

Simply copy and paste the output.

I must admit that I unashamedly copied the original script from  David R Buckingham (many thanks) on SQLBlog.com and here’s the link to the original).

However, here I modified it to deal with multiple datatypes since editing and debugging in the “Conditional Split Transformation Editor” needs much improvement.

/*
This script assists with the creation of the Conditional Split “Changed Rows” condition
– be sure your results aren’t being truncated when you have a table with many columns
*/
— BEGIN SCRIPT —
USE master
GO

DECLARE @Filter varchar(max)

SET @Filter = ”

SELECT @Filter = @Filter + ‘((ISNULL(‘ + c.[name] + ‘)?’+
CASE WHEN c.system_type_id IN (35,104,167,175,231,239,241) THEN ‘”"‘
  WHEN c.system_type_id IN (58,61) THEN ‘(DT_DBTIMESTAMP)”1900-01-01″‘
  ELSE ’0′ END
+ ‘:’ + c.[name] + ‘)!=(ISNULL(Dest_’ + c.[name] + ‘)?’ +
CASE WHEN c.system_type_id IN (35,104,167,175,231,239,241) THEN ‘”"‘
  WHEN c.system_type_id IN (58,61) THEN ‘(DT_DBTIMESTAMP)”1900-01-01″‘
  ELSE ’0′ END
+’:Dest_’ + c.[name] + ‘)) || ‘
FROM sys.tables t
INNER JOIN sys.columns c
ON t.[object_id] = c.[object_id]
WHERE SCHEMA_NAME( t.[schema_id] ) = ‘dbo’ — enter tour schema name here
AND t.[name] = ‘MyTable’ — enter your table name here
AND c.[is_identity] = 0
AND c.[is_rowguidcol] = 0
ORDER BY
c.[column_id]

SET @Filter = LEFT(@Filter, (LEN(@Filter) – 2))

SELECT @Filter

–SELECT
– c.*
–FROM
– sys.tables t
–JOIN
– sys.columns c
– ON t.[object_id] = c.[object_id]
–WHERE
– SCHEMA_NAME( t.[schema_id] ) = ‘dbo’
–AND t.[name] = ‘DimUPRTable’
–AND c.[is_identity] = 0
–AND c.[is_rowguidcol] = 0
–ORDER BY
–c.[column_id]

–SELECT  
–  schemas.name AS [Schema]
– ,tables.name AS [Table]
– ,columns.name AS [Column]
– ,CASE WHEN columns.system_type_id = 34   
–   THEN ‘byte[]‘            
–   WHEN columns.system_type_id = 35   
–   THEN ‘string’            
–   WHEN columns.system_type_id = 36   
–   THEN ‘System.Guid’            
–   WHEN columns.system_type_id = 48   
–   THEN ‘byte’            
–   WHEN columns.system_type_id = 52   
–   THEN ‘short’            
–   WHEN columns.system_type_id = 56   
–   THEN ‘int’            
–   WHEN columns.system_type_id = 58   
–   THEN ‘System.DateTime’            
–   WHEN columns.system_type_id = 59   
–   THEN ‘float’            
–   WHEN columns.system_type_id = 60   
–   THEN ‘decimal’            
–   WHEN columns.system_type_id = 61   
–   THEN ‘System.DateTime’            
–   WHEN columns.system_type_id = 62   
–   THEN ‘double’            
–   WHEN columns.system_type_id = 98   
–   THEN ‘object’            
–   WHEN columns.system_type_id = 99   
–   THEN ‘string’            
–   WHEN columns.system_type_id = 104  
–   THEN ‘bool’            
–   WHEN columns.system_type_id = 106  
–   THEN ‘decimal’            
–   WHEN columns.system_type_id = 108  
–   THEN ‘decimal’            
–   WHEN columns.system_type_id = 122  
–   THEN ‘decimal’            
–   WHEN columns.system_type_id = 127  
–   THEN ‘long’            
–   WHEN columns.system_type_id = 165  
–   THEN ‘byte[]‘            
–   WHEN columns.system_type_id = 167  
–   THEN ‘string’            
–   WHEN columns.system_type_id = 173  
–   THEN ‘byte[]‘            
–   WHEN columns.system_type_id = 175  
–   THEN ‘string’            
–   WHEN columns.system_type_id = 189  
–   THEN ‘long’            
–   WHEN columns.system_type_id = 231  
–   THEN ‘string’            
–   WHEN columns.system_type_id = 239  
–   THEN ‘string’            
–   WHEN columns.system_type_id = 241  
–   THEN ‘string’            
–   WHEN columns.system_type_id = 241  
–   THEN ‘string’        
–   END AS [Type]
–  ,columns.is_nullable AS [Nullable]
–FROM             
– sys.tables tables   
–INNER JOIN   
– sys.schemas schemas
–ON (tables.schema_id = schemas.schema_id )   
–INNER JOIN   
– sys.columns columns
–ON (columns.object_id = tables.object_id) 
–WHERE    
–  tables.name <> ‘sysdiagrams’
– AND tables.name <> ‘dtproperties’
–ORDER BY
–  [Schema]
– ,[Table]
– ,[Column]
– ,[Type]

I am so very much enjoying my new role as a SQL DBA at Insight UK http://uk.insight.com

This company is really switched on and very responsive. 

Immediately I am involved with SQL 200o, 2005, 2008 and a Business Intelligence project!

Plus I have all the software and system resources I need to do my job and all my connections use a single logon.

What a refreshing change!

They sell computer stuff – have a look at http://uk.insight.com

And here’s the quick and dirty fix:

ALTER DATABASE TempDB

MODIFY FILE (NAME=tempdev_02, MAXSIZE = UNLIMITED)

This at least allowed us to continue working  – ensure you have a lot of disk space so it doesn’t fill up entirely!

MS have a few ”solutions” which entail manually running the fix in a command prompt, however they are full of inaccuracies and caused me endless hours of fun. 

I think MS is a joke for issuing an Automatic Update which doesn’t , erm, automatically update…

Here’s the link to the MS update with its “known issues”:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/960082/ 

At last I fixed the thing!

Add a comment or email JohnnyReaction@rickatson.com  for the corrected method.

Never use dynamic disks on a server if you will need to resize the partitions later as most software (at least the stuff I can afford) will not do it. To convert back to basic disks the Microsoft way is a real pain so this link is a life saver:

http://mypkb.wordpress.com/2007/03/28/how-to-non-destructively-convert-dynamic-disks-to-basic-disks/

I wasted all weekend reinstalling Reporting Servers 2005 on Windows Server 2003 R2 Enterprise with no luck –  then this morning I did something in ten minutes to make it all work again.

Great! I guess I should attribute this to the power of REM sleep according to http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/8090730.stm

Now I can go back to studying for the  exam I have been postponing  (70-445 MS SQL Server 2005 Business Intelligence-Implementation & Maintenance).

One of the servers is running SQL 2005 Reporting Services and now I find that the Report Server is unavailable to my browser clients.

This is apparently something to do with the way IIS 6.0 uses Application Pools, so now I have to go and research that.

This should have been pointed out on the Windows Server 2003 Upgrade Advisor Tool.

Thanks, once again, Microsoft for your sterling efforts.

Why is it that people will engage you for your expertise at great expense then proceed to ignore your advice?

I guess that in these difficult economic times everyone is trying to pour a quart into a pint pot.

Well, sometimes you are better off spending a bit of money now to save you a great deal more later on!