My memories of Windows 2003 are getting a little dim (thankfully). Do you have something like UAC (User Access Control) enabled on the server? In know this can...

i don't recall log Shipping getting deprecated then rehabilitated. i can see that happening, since you can develop a home grown Log Shipping solution with a little trouble.

The mirroring...

For Database Mirroring (now deprecated), there was an attribute you could add to an ADO.NET connection string for Failover Partner. This would cause the client to try to connect...

Does the application try to use ODBC? The 32 and 64 bit ODBC DSN definitions are kept separately from one another.

First thing you will need to do is to be able to select those values. Try playing with this

select xml_uncompressed.value ('(/Details/Age)[1]', 'int'),

xml_uncompressed.value ('(/Details/Name)[1]', 'varchar(20)'),

...

You should be able to install the Failover Clustering feature on both servers. You may have to do a bit of work to make them not as standalone as...

Are the build numbers for both sides of the cluster the same? This should be an immediate failure in the failover.

Also, is the (once) primary in synchronous mode? ...

I am not sure if this is strictly possible. The "Restrictions" section of the BoL page for Piecemeal Restores seems to say you can not restore logs after a...

How about here?

It's probably the result of using the same grant script on both nodes of the cluster. Since the account is already a sysadmin, I would not worry too much...

Are you sure permissions on the endpoint were not granted to a service account on the partner box?

SPID 51 is usually a user process, but in this case, it is likely SQLAgent. Try just starting SQL Server alone without SQLAgent. If that does not work,...

SQL Express can be downloaded and redistributed for free. Naturally, it does not come with a full set of capabilities.

You can also install an evaluation copy, which will...

Do you have any databases that use Snapshot Isolation?

select name, snapshot_isolation_state

from sys.databases

where snapshot_isolation_state > 0

we have an application that did not free up it's snapshots on a timely basis, so...

If it is a regular old fashioned Windows Failover cluster, you only need to restore the database once, and it is stored on the shared storage. If you have...