Thanks I set it up on "auto" (which is the default setting for 2019) and "tested" it with a reasonably hefty query that I know. It caught it nicely with...

Thank you Grant. I know this was a broad one. I will enable the query store (of course I'm assuming that it does not effect things too much) to gain...

The previous files have been stored on the the Sql server itself in an accessible share available to the uers.

I'm not sure what will happen to them TBH. I suspect...

Requirements are fairly loose Eirkur. Investigate the storing of Excel documents either in Sql Server or a fileshare (on a different server to the Sql one), whichever is best.

I did...

No reason other than it was introduced to me first, so I got a primitive prototype working but as I did I learned about its limitations. I'm leaning away from...

Folks, thanks for the feedback and apologies for the delay. I managed to get the the BLOB technique working - the issue was the format of the .fmt file. Thank...

Sorry folks, I made a slight error in communication I think. The database in question gets a full backup every week not every month as incorrectly implied. When I say...

Thank you most kindly Scott for the approach. Let me investigate this (to get my head around it) and I will post if I get stuck. Many, many thanks to...

Hi, thanks for the advice. The database in question is interesting in the sense that its a financial number storing database whose values are rebuilt (ie lots of calculations &...

Hi everyone, thanks for the speedy response. Take it easy oneme though, I'm just a developer not a db admin! I will try and answer your queries:

1. Recovery model is:...

Thanks for the speedy reply. The type of use of is in 2 ways

Way 1): Extract at a later stage. The Cr+lf can & does muck up nice formatting later...

Thanks for the speedy reply Ken.

I ran the the following command (as sysadmin) and got:

EXEC sp_xp_cmdshell_proxy_account 'SERVERNAME\XPCmdShellProxy', 'somePassword';

but got the error:

"An error occurred during the execution of sp_xp_cmdshell_proxy_account. Possible reasons:...

Thanks for the links (esp. the first one).

I made more progress and also found this script here to be immensely useful: https://dba.stackexchange.com/questions/201776/grant-user-from-my-database-to-execute-xp-cmdshell

On the server itself in control panel...

Hi Grant, thanks for your feedback. I think I'm going to move away from Maintenace Plans and use the relevant sql code as I will have more control over the...

Sincere thanks to all those who contributed. I have better understanding of the issues involved and the coverage required. Much appreciated, J.