cont'd:

I know that the result of a DECRYPTBYKEY call is a varbinary value, that's why you have to convert it to varchar.

I'm not the sharpest tool in the shed, but does this have anything to do with it?

You convert it to varchar. Varchar by itself limits it to 10 characters...

This is my chance to return the favor for all the ideas and scripts that I have received from this wonderful website.

Here is my instance security audit documentation script....

Is it the server, or a program on the server? I believe the EventSource in the Event Log should give a clue as to the program that is doing...

If you are auditing failed logins, the IP address of the offending machine should appear in the Windows Application event log. Do a

ping -a <ipaddress>

example:

ping -a 172.169.1.1

and...

Can you do just one instance of 2008 and run the 2005 database in compatiliby mode? That only means 1 license.

I backup all my databases (and the tranlogs) to the actual server they reside on. I wrote a program that copies all the new backup files every hour to...

True, assuming that ID = 3 can only occur on one record.

I use the ISNULL() function for things of this nature.

SET @someval = ISNULL((SELECT Name FROM SOMETABLE WHERE ID=3),'')

OR

SELECT @someval = ISNULL(Name,'') FROM SOMETABLE WHERE ID=3

if the result is null, will...

Here is another example from a blog on SQL Server Central.

http://www.sqlservercentral.com/blogs/sqlrnnr/archive/2011/8/15/send-dbmail.aspx

You can use DBMail to send an attachment of the results of a SELECT statement.

EXEC msdb.dbo.sp_send_dbmail

@profile_name = 'SQL Server Mail Profile',

@recipients =...

I think this is what you are talking about, being able to print the values that are returned:

DECLARE @st int

DECLARE @rn int

DECLARE @em varchar(200)

EXEC...

It almost sounds like the backup file set contains multiple backups. Might have to use the FILE= clause of the restore command to specify the one that is to...

This is how I do it. See code below. I use the MiscValues table to set variables that I can use to turn things on/off, which I use...

Another great advantage of using a drop down list, as we have learned, is that it gives greater opportunity to do reporting. It allows you to easilly determine how...