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  • TDE Restore Fails: Cannot Find Server Certificate (Error 33111)

    A TDE database restore on another server fails with Msg 33111. Match the thumbprint in the message, create the certificate in master from its .cer and .pvk backup files, and the same restore goes through.

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  • DBA Scripts: Get Worker Threads and Active Sessions

    🔧Part of the DBA-Tools Project, copy/paste SQL Server scripts and health checks.In: Performance & Troubleshooting › Query & Performance Tuning There is a particular kind of SQL Server incident where the server is up, CPU looks fine, and yet new connections hang or time out. Applications report login failures, and even your own SSMS connection…

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  • Get Database File Names and Paths in SQL Server

    As a DBA, you regularly need to know where your database files live, how big they are, and how they’re configured to grow. Capacity planning, migration prep, new environment review, disk space incidents: they all start here. This script gives you a full picture of every user database file on the instance: physical path, drive…

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  • DBA Scripts: Get SQL Agent Job Overview

    🔧Part of the DBA-Tools Project, copy/paste SQL Server scripts and health checks.In: Maintenance & Automation › SQL Agent & Jobs Most SQL Server instances end up with a handful of Agent jobs that quietly run backups, index maintenance, and monitoring collectors in the background. Nobody looks at them until something breaks, and by then it…

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  • DBA Scripts: Get Services Information

    🔧Part of the DBA-Tools Project, copy/paste SQL Server scripts and health checks.In: Server & Configuration › Server Inventory A SQL Server instance is really a handful of Windows services working together, and it is surprisingly common for one of them to be quietly misconfigured. The SQL Server Agent service set to Manual startup instead of…

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  • How to Increase Maximum Characters Displayed in SSMS

    🛠️Part of the SSMS Complete Guide, installing, configuring and fixing SQL Server Management Studio.Related pillar: Server & Configuration ⚡Tools → Options, search for “results to text”, and raise Maximum number of characters displayed in each column. Then open a new query window. The default is 256, and output past it is cut off without a…

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  • Applying Data Retention Safely in SQL Server

    Data retention in SQL Server usually means deleting old data in a controlled and repeatable way. That might be driven by compliance requirements, table growth that’s starting to hurt performance, SQL Server Express size limits, or simply keeping log and audit tables under control. Whether this is a one-off cleanup or a permanent maintenance task,…

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  • DBA Scripts: Get Backup Coverage

    🔧Part of the DBA-Tools Project, copy/paste SQL Server scripts and health checks.In: Backup & Recovery Most production SQL Server environments have backup jobs configured. The question that actually matters is whether those jobs are running, and succeeding, for every database that needs them. A database added last month might never have been folded into the…

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  • DBA Scripts: Get Instance Configuration Snapshot

    🔧Part of the DBA-Tools Project, copy/paste SQL Server scripts and health checks.In: Server & Configuration › Server Inventory Every sp_configure setting on an instance tells a small story: a value someone changed deliberately, a value nobody’s touched since install, or a value that’s been changed but is still waiting for RECONFIGURE or a restart to…

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  • Understanding WHERE 1=1 and WHERE 1=2 in SQL Queries

    In SQL, you will often see queries written using WHERE 1=1 or WHERE 1=2. At first glance, both look pointless. One is always true, the other always false. In practice, both are deliberate patterns used for query construction and control, not filtering logic. They exist to make SQL safer, easier to manipulate, and more predictable…

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