SQL Server Configuration Manager... Learn it, Love it!

Do you mean which SQL 2005 engines? (database, Reporting Services, Analysis Services, etc?)

Chris, you should have no trouble using it as a witness but, as everything in life, it depends.... As the witness it is basically making sure both the principal and...

Dean, how about some more details? for instance, SQL version, Office version, MDAC version, etc. Also, is the Excel file on the same file system as the server? I ran...

Obaid, this is very broad. Can you be more specific?

DB

Dean, to rule out any issues with the linked server, try running this...

select * FROM OPENROWSET('Microsoft.Jet.OLEDB.4.0',

'Excel 8.0;DATABASE=C:\Import\PersonProfile.xls', 'Select * from [Sheet1$]')

Note: If your worksheet tabs are name then replace...

Ice, after adding your DataFlowDestination (your SQL database) and have connected the output of the DataFlowSoure (text file) to the input of the DataFlowDestination, right click the destination and chose...

Davy, check out this white paper: http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/sql/2005/multisec.mspx

William all I can say is the sky is the limit. I've actually implemented a 2 node cluster with log shipping, replication and mirroring. It all depends on the purpose...

Kelly, some key counters and their significance...

processor queue length ( < 2 / processor )

disk queue length (<1000/spindle)

%disk time (obviously <100, the lower the better)

contect switches/sec (the lower the better)

Hope...

While we're on the topic of processes involving SA and xp_cmdshell, a quick, down and dirty way to load the contents of a directory (date ordered) is to use DIR...

While everyone elses reponses are right on the money (32 bit vs. 64 bit, CPU Cores, etc) you can also gather performance data on existing databases in order to get...

I actually resolved this. My virtual server name was corrupt. I had to drop and recreate it using sp_dropserver and sp_addserver. Interestingly enough, the error message was very specific: "SQL...

Colin, you nailed it your second to last post. We are short spindles and we can't add more.

Randy, we are currently attached to a poser vault. Unfortunately, that is wehre we are getting our I/O bottlenecks.