A Fine Slice Of SQL Server
The latest SQL Server Management Studio 22 update (22.11.0) seems to have caused some issues, including nuking the connection history, as per Brent Ozar’s post.
I figured it might be useful to have a way to backup SSMS 22’s connection history before an update, and then restore it in case of similar issues.
Click through for that process.
Leave a CommentI was in Italy for a month. While I was gone, somebody got sysadmin out of SQL Copilot with a variable.
The vulnerability is CVE-2026-65669, the SSMS 22 Copilot bug I wrote about early September. The full write-up went public on September 30th, and the detail that stuck with me is how Copilot’s ‘read-only mode’ was enforced. It wasn’t a permission. It was a regex blocklist.
That blocklist is the same control we have watched fail against SQL injection for twenty years. Before I get to Copilot, let’s build one here and see it fail.
These sorts of blacklists almost never work against a committed attacker because, unless you fully enumerate the possible domain, there’s an opportunity for someone to slip through, and that’s exactly what happened here.
Leave a CommentHemantgiri Goswami makes a move:
I have a strange preference. I keep my Windows taskbar at the top of the screen, and I have been doing so for years. Anything requiring attention shall be positioned at the TOP.
This isn’t about aesthetics.
When you administer Development, UAT, Pre-Production, and Production databases throughout the day, the SQL syntax doesn’t change. The query window doesn’t change. Sometimes, even the database names don’t change.
I’d never thought to do that before, to be honest.
Leave a CommentLouis Davidson shows a process:
So in this next entry in this series, I want to start to cover a topic that every nerdy SQL programmer is going to want to know. “How do I make a query faster?” If you have worked with relational databases, you know the simple answer is to… check the estimated query plan, run the query and look at the actual plan, and in many cases to be completely honest, add indexes.
Click through to see how closely your current SQL Server skills translate in this instance. The specifics of query tuning and table design in the Fabric Data Warehouse will differ a bit from on-premises SQL Server, but at this level, it’s quite similar.
Comments closedChad Callihan takes another look:
I posted a few months ago about the latest SQL Server Management Studio updates, including a preview of their SQL Formatter. SSMS 22.9.0 was released a few weeks ago and called out some SQL Formatter improvements on the release announcement, so I thought it would be worth taking a fresh look to see how things are moving along.
Click through for Chad’s current thoughts. The big challenge with a good SQL formatting tool is that it be adaptable to somewhat complex formatting standards. If the tool can’t do what your team has agreed on, then the tool’s not going to cut it for more than occasional personal use.
2 CommentsSomething I have been making use of recently is the change in the way statistics that have been used to compile a plan are presented to us as SQL Server users. On a number of occasions I have needed to understand, or at least get some sense of, which statistics SQL Server has used to come up with some of its estimates, usually when troubleshooting a poor estimate. This information has been available to us for a while, but up until fairly recent (OK – define recent, I guess!) versions of SQL Server, it was a bit hidden.
Granted, “fairly recent” means “all of the SQL Server versions that no longer have official support.” But there’s a compatibility level factor at play as well, so click through to learn more.
Comments closedAleksey Vitsko creates an availability group:
SQL Server Availability Groups are great for DR and HA purposes. In this article, we look at how to setup a SQL Server 2025 Availability Group using the features in SQL Server Management Studio.
Read on for the demo.
Comments closedDeborah Melkin continues a series on query plans:
This is the second part of the series. Hopefully you are all caught up on Part 1. If not, you can see that here.
Part 2 is about Actual Execution Plans. I have the (slightly edited for garbled words) transcript below for those who prefer to read, with references to places in the video. Otherwise, watch the video and let me know what you think.
Click through for the video and transcript.
Comments closedChad Callihan tries out a new feature:
Code formatting can be a touchy subject. Sometimes there are clear rules to designate right and wrong, and sometimes there’s not. Tabs versus spaces, anyone?
Surprisingly, SQL Server Management Studio has never had a built-in SQL formatter. Users were always left to use third-party tools or format by hand. But with the latest SSMS 22.7, SQL formatting finally comes built-in.
Let’s look at some examples and see how it performs.
Chad also spotted a problem in the formatter as it is in that release.
Comments closedAndy Brownsword tries out a new feature:
Dealing with endless formats for SQL scripts is a special type of pain you get to enjoy as a data developer. With the arrival of SSMS v22.7 last week, we have a solution in the form of a T-SQL formatter which is now available in preview.
Read on for Andy’s thoughts.
Comments closed