SQL DBA Blog: Home

  • How to Check SQL Server Version

    Knowing exactly which SQL Server version and build is running is foundational DBA work. It comes up during patching, incident response, audits, upgrades, and when engaging Microsoft support. SQL Server exposes version information in several ways. Some are fast and visual, others are scriptable, and a few provide deeper installation detail when you need it.…

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  • sqlcmd Examples for SQL Server

    No SSMS on the box, or SSMS will not connect, and you need to run a query or a script file from a shell right now. sqlcmd does that from Command Prompt, PowerShell or a Linux shell. On any current install it also refuses the first connection with a certificate error until you add -C,…

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  • Install and Update SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)

    🛠️Part of the SSMS Complete Guide, installing, configuring and fixing SQL Server Management Studio.Related pillar: Server & Configuration SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) is the primary management tool for SQL Server and Azure SQL. What changed in recent releases is not how it looks but how it installs, updates and connects: it ships through the…

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  • SSMS Certificate Chain Not Trusted Error (Trust Server Certificate Fix)

    🚨Part of the SQL Server Errors series, the exact messages and what actually causes them.Related pillar: Security SSL Provider  ·  error: 0 A connection was successfully established with the server, but then an error occurred during the login process. (provider: SSL Provider, error: 0 – The certificate chain was issued by an authority that is…

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  • SQL Server Default Ports

    Something cannot connect, or the firewall team wants a port number before they will open anything. Both questions have the same answer, and it is not a guess: ask the instance what it is listening on. TCP 1433 is right on a default instance nobody has touched, and it stops being right as soon as…

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  • Check When SQL Server Was Last Restarted

    Knowing when SQL Server last restarted is one of the simplest checks a DBA can perform, and one of the most useful. It immediately answers questions around patching, failovers, configuration changes, and unexplained behaviour. Before assuming anything else, confirming uptime is always worth doing first. This post shows the most reliable way to check SQL…

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  • Using PowerShell to Get Last SQL Failover Time

    When reviewing availability events on SQL Server, one of the first questions is often: Did the cluster move, and when? This post shows how to use PowerShell to retrieve the last Windows Failover Cluster role movement for a SQL Server instance by querying cluster event logs. It’s a fast, reliable way to confirm node-level failovers…

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  • Enabling TCP Connections in SQL Server

    A remote client cannot connect and the instance is running. The application reports Named Pipes Provider, error: 40 or SQL Network Interfaces, error: 26, and the first thing to rule out is the server not listening on TCP/IP at all. ⚡TCP/IP is a server setting that only takes effect when the SQL Server service restarts.…

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  • How to Show Line Numbers in SSMS

    🛠️Part of the SSMS Complete Guide, installing, configuring and fixing SQL Server Management Studio. ⚡Tools → Options, search for “line numbers”, and tick Line numbers. Current SSMS has them on already. If they still do not show in query windows, the Transact-SQL language page has its own copy of the setting. Line numbers sit down…

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  • How to Add Columns to Tables in SQL Server

    Adding a column is one line of T-SQL, and on most tables it finishes at once. The incidents come from two places: an ALTER TABLE that waits for a schema lock and blocks every query that arrives behind it, and a default value that makes SQL Server rewrite every row. This post covers the safe…

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