You know, I've come to the conclusion over the past cpl weeks of interviewing candidates, that asking 'how would you rate your SQL Server skills, out of 10?' gives a...

Have been on both sides. Interviewed at MS for a SQL Support position (way way back). Walked in with the attitude that "these people know a LOT more...

On a general more interviewing theme, remember the maxim 'The way you do one thing is the way you do everything'. This is why it is always so crucial...

Excellent article and thread

My 2p - in interviews I deliberately ask one or two questions nobody in their sane mind outght to know...

If this is going to 500+ sites, I suspect you may have a Premier agreement with Microsoft (if you're that big, you may well have).  If so, contact your TAM...

assuming you have a legal copy of sql server you have a support agreement with Microsoft (usually 2 free support calls per product, but you may have a premier agreement...

Microsoft recruit beta testers from http://www.betaplace.com for most programs, so try registering there if you can.  I doubt there will be any more testers invited before RC1 though

Certainly could, depending on the system.  I was thinking in terms of when you're trying to write the class of tools that could include a source control system!

But yeah, not...

in the event you're building a configuration management system where you may need to 'prove' an audit trail on some code or pictures in some way.  And it took a...

How about using a table-returning User-defined Function instead?

Just don't do it - you'll give yourself heaps of work, ruin your app performance, and I can only think of ONE business case where you'd need to do this,...

oh yeah, also try using the oledb driver instead of odbc!

should work without having a client install of oracle afaik - there will be some limitations in the ODBC driver - could it be one of those tripping you up?

from...

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;818368 for vs.net, and

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;201240 for vs6 (looks like it's best to use interdev)

I tried and used this for a while, and it does work.  The only downside I would...

either