If you must shrink the data files, do that first.

The index rebuilds and the concomitant latency will require a lot of log file space.

Make sure you communicate to the system...

Surely you meant:

SELECT DATEADD(d, -2, DATEADD(m, DATEDIFF(m, 0, GETDATE())+1, 0))

SELECT DATEADD(s, -1, DATEADD(m, DATEDIFF(m, 0, GETDATE())+1, 0))

returns: 2013-10-31 23:59:59.000

Another possibility is temporary locking of the service account.

Perhaps a process or a user is occasionally trying to authenticate with the service account credentials and failing multiple times (incorrect pwd)...

This could be a permission issue, where for some reason the service account's permission to write to the UNC path cannot be verified.

This could be caused by Active directory issues.

Another...

If you want to kill all connections to a single database, simply run:

USE [master]

GO

ALTER DATABASE <db_name> SET SINGLE_USER WITH ROLLBACK IMMEDIATE

GO

ALTER DATABASE <db_name> SET MULTI_USER

GO

This is why I use WMI calls against physical server names:

foreach($Volume in $(gwmi -computername $ServerName win32_volume | where-object{$_.DriveType -eq 3}))

...

Does this script handle mount points and C: drives on passive nodes in a cluster?

drop table <schema_name>.temptest

<schema_name> is what you find in sys.schemas where schema_id = 55.

the lesson here is ALWAYS use two part name (schema_name.object_name)

select * from sys.objects

not sysobjects

The SQL Server process writes info on port bindings to the errorlog at startup.

What schema is the table in?

What is the output of select * from sys.objects where name = 'temptest'

What happens if you explicitly try to drop the object via T-SQL?

sp_configure 'allow updates', 1 is no longer supported, as you found out.

Have you run DBCC on the database in question?

is the volume consistent with actual modification of the table?

Have you had the server guys check the power saving settings on the VM and the host.

See Brent Ozar's article on this issue:

http://www.brentozar.com/archive/2010/10/sql-server-on-powersaving-cpus-not-so-fast/

Also, I am curious why you...