Sneaky, Sneaky
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I'm not sure what to make of this. First we had the SQL Server 2000 Service Pack 3, and quickly a Service Pack 3a released. Getting from one to another was a bit of a hassle.
Now, very quietly, and without much fanfare, there's a new Service Pack 2 for SQL Server 2005. I happened to catch this on Aaron Bertrand's blog where he noticed the release and saw the version change. It seems it was a release that fixed the maintenance plan issue.
If you missed it, maintenance plans had a new option, hours, for the cleanup wizard (as opposed to days/weeks/years). However old plans had their intervals mis-interpreted. So days became hours, weeks became days, etc. Quite a #$%@-up if you ask me.
So how to you get from SP2 to SP2a?
Not sure. Here's a KB article on the maintenance plan issue: Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Service Pack 2 issue. It seems there's a GDR, General Distribution Release update.
I went to the Microsoft SQL Server home page and there's no mention of SP2. It used to be at the top of the right hand column, a quick place to get your update. I clicked the Support menu item and there's no service pack info. I'd have hoped there would be a "Get your new SP2" message at the top, but nothing is there.
In fact, under the top downloads, SQL Server 2000 Service Pack 4 is listed!!!!
As much as I think the SQL Server team has done a wonderful job, this is bad. It's insulting and it's not good customer service. Everyone makes mistakes. We've all done something like this before. Admit you made a mistake and work hard to make it better.
Don't pretend it never happened.
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Absolutely.
As disappointed as I was with the Dell laptop batteries fiasco last year, I was very impressed with the way that company handled it - no blame-shifting, no avoiding the issue, just a response of, "Oops, our bad. Turns out batteries that we got from that particular supplier are potentially problematic. Bring them back, we'll change them."
I'd still buy a Dell laptop after that response.
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C8H10N4O2
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Depends what you bookmark. I've got the MSDN site selected because that's got all the techy bits on it and that has it right up front.
If you go to SQL Server Home http://www.microsoft.com/sql/default.mspx then look at downloads in the left menu bar and then SQL 2005 and then service packs, it's there as well.
Quite agree that more should have been made of both the Maintenance plan issue and of some of the "features" in SP2. The biggie that made me use the early release version was the scripting options. Why that had to wait to SP2 I don't know. There was some discussion on this site which alerted me to the problem and its solution.
One would hope that something like this would be flagged up prominently.
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I applied the sp2a (as instructed), it gets 1/2 way through updating the database engine files and hotfix.exe crashes. Lovely
Going through the documented recovery procedure seems to bring me to a state of having updated files (by checking file versions) but re-running sp2a tells me the database engine side hasnt been updated yet.
Got to love it!
At least everything seems to be running ok
martin
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My only real bitch is that when they knew that the SP had issues that they didn't remove it from the downloads. I patched one of the development servers with the original release and luckly thats as far as it got. Good thing we have been slow to test this as it may have gotten to production.
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Perhaps is not "commercially" convenient for Microsoft to make public such a mistake. However, as Steve said, we've all done mistakes before; and admiting you made a mistake and working to fix it it's the best atitude you can have in those situations.
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I hope MS monitors and listens to this thread. It seems that MS has failed to remember its history lessons as Steve pointed out in the editorial. For me it just lends even more credence to waiting until SP3 has been GA for 3 to 6 months before even considering upgrades (where possible) to SQL 2K5.
RegardsRudy KomacsarSenior Database Administrator"Ave Caesar! - Morituri te salutamus."
- I had the same tought as Rudy, but then had to think why I upgraded (in Dev). There were too many fixes and enhancements to wait! This is akin to Steve's compaint that MS is not just patching things, but releasing new features in their service packs. If you wanted the new features, you had to live with the glitches. Of course, it sounds like it was a new feature here that came back to bite them. nice...
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I agree with the first couple of posts. After working in this business for the better part of a decade, I realize that mistakes happen - even a big company like Microsoft cannot model every possible scenario before deployment. However, the right thing to do is to fess up as quickly as possible while providing a solution to the problem. Sure, your user base will be a bit irritated by having to apply another fix, but far less so than if the problem is swept under the rug to be discovered later. I expect better from Microsoft.
Tim Mitchell, Microsoft Data Platform MVP
Data Warehouse and ETL Consultant
TimMitchell.net | @Tim_Mitchell | Tyleris.com
ETL Best Practices -
I was unfortunate in that I waited until 3/5 to install SS2005 SP2. On 3/6 I was installing SP2a to fix the maintenance issues and on 3/8 the critical update to it. Glad I didn't have hundreds of servers to update. Bummer.
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