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Category: Administration

Code Pages in PostgreSQL on Windows

Published 2026-02-18 by Kevin Feasel

Kellyn Gorman tells a story:

Running PostgreSQL on Windows feels deceptively simple for anyone with a Windows laptop that just wants a local database to test or demo on.  Just a few clicks and I’ve installed it, started the service, open psql and I’m up and running.
Except… not quite.
Because if you’ve ever seen this message:

Console code page set to 1252 for psql compatibility

You’ve stepped into one of the more subtle, frustrating challenges of running PostgreSQL on Windows. So, let’s talk about why this happens, what it is and why it matters more than you might think…

This has several downstream problems, as Kellyn points out. Read on to see how you can fix the issue.

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Starting an Expired SQL Server VM

Published 2026-02-11 by Kevin Feasel

Rob Douglas ran out the clock:

My preview trial of 2025 was evaluation version, and if you let that run past 180 days your SQL instance just will not start. I had an old Azure VM that I fired up to grab some code from a SQL Agent job I had been playing with and hit exactly this problem. Here’s the workaround:

Click through for the process. Fortunately, Rob doesn’t stop at how to get the instance up again, but continues into installing a non-evaluation version.

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Monitoring Query Plan Utilization in PostgreSQL

Published 2026-02-10 by Kevin Feasel

Ahmed Gouda shows how to use pgwatch to track query plan utilization:

The PostgreSQL ecosystem just introduced a new pg_stat_plans extension. It’s similar to pg_stat_statements but it tracks aggregated statistics for query plans instead of SQL statements.

It exposes a SQL interface to query those statistics via the pg_stat_plans view, and in this post, I will explore how easy it is to integrate such extensions with pgwatch for those who want to improve/customize the metrics gathered from a monitored database.

Click through for the demo.

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Migrating from a Contained Availability Group

Published 2026-02-09 by Kevin Feasel

Warren Departee undoes a problem:

A client was running a Contained Availability Group in SQL Server 2022, but wasn’t using the AG Listener for their application connections. This negated most of the benefits the Contained AG was designed to provide. They also had some security misunderstandings and missteps, as this was built for them without any real knowledge transfer – one of the reasons they reached out to us for help. After review, it became clear that there was no need for a contained AG here, so we helped them migrate to a Basic Availability Group (SQL Server Availability Group in SQL Server Standard Edition) while preserving their database configurations and minimizing downtime.

Read on for a step-by-step process and a few hints on configuration.

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Thoughts on Creating Databases in Contained Availability Groups

Published 2026-02-09 by Kevin Feasel

Andreas Wolter digs into some updated functionality:

First of all: It’s always encouraging to see the Product team act on user feedback. SQL Server 2025 CU1 introduces an improvement that allows the creation and restoration of databases within contained availability groups (CAG). This is a step in the right direction, but as you’ll see, there are still some bumps to smooth out. Keep the feedback coming (here: Allow creation and restore of databases in contained availability group) — progress is happening, but we’re not quite there yet.

Read on for a litany of issues, as well as Andreas’s recommended solutions.

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Install and Configure SSIS 2025

Published 2026-02-06 by Kevin Feasel

Koen Verbeeck performs an installation:

We’re an on-premises shop running all our services on our own machines. We’re planning to migrate to SQL Server 2025 and there are some older SSIS projects we might need. Is SQL Server Integration Services still supported in SQL Server 2025? If yes, how can we install it on our server? Do we still need Visual Studio to develop projects and packages, and how can we convert the older projects?

Granted, SSIS hasn’t exactly changed a lot with SQL Server 2025, but it’s there for you.

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The Basics of Transaction Logging

Published 2026-02-04 by Kevin Feasel

Paul Randal republishes an older post that is no longer available:

All through my career as a data professional, both inside Microsoft and as a consultant, I’ve found that one of the most misunderstood parts of SQL Server is the transaction log. Lack of knowledge of how the transaction log works and needs to be managed, or just simple misconceptions, can lead to all kinds of production problems, including:

  • The transaction log growing out-of-control and potentially running out of space
  • Performance issues from repeated shrinking of the transaction log
  • Performance issues from a problem known as VLF fragmentation, which I discussed in this post
  • The inability to recover to a desired point in time using transaction log backups
  • The inability to perform a tail-log backup during disaster recovery (see here for an explanation of tail-log backups)
  • Various issues around failovers and restore performance

With this post I’m starting an occasional series (now here on my SQLskills blog) on the transaction log and how it works and should be managed, and I’ll touch on all the problems above over its course. In this post I’ll explain what logging is and why it’s required.

Read on for that explanation.

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Changing SQL Server on Linux Editions

Published 2026-02-04 by Kevin Feasel

Vlad Drumea swaps the edition:

In this post I cover the steps required to change (downgrade or upgrade) the edition of a SQL Server instance running on Linux.

In my previous post I’ve went through the steps of installing SQL Server 2025 on Ubuntu 24.04 LTS.
While the process is pretty straight-forward, there might be cases where someone can accidentally specify the wrong edition and only notice afterwards.

Luckily, the edition can be changed with just a few commands.

It’d be neat if it worked the same way for Windows.

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Building an Ubuntu VM from Powershell Script

Published 2026-02-02 by Kevin Feasel

Vlad Drumea has a script:

I needed a fresh Ubuntu VM in VirtualBox this weekend so I figured I can take this opportunity to refresh my PowerShell based process.

Prerequisites

For this VM I’m using the following:

  • Oracle VirtualBox 7.2.6 r172322 running on a Windows host.
  • The installation media (ISO file) for Ubuntu 24.04.3 LTS.
  • 51GB of available space on the drive where the VM will live.
    Note that the default Ubuntu install is ~10GB, but I want the extra space to be able to install other stuff later on.

Click through for the script and explanation of the process. It’s not entirely automated, but Vlad does get to the Ubuntu installation point via Powershell and then takes it up from there.

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