Discoveries With Sql Server on Windows 2008 Server

 

Ever since i’ve started using Windows Server 2008, I’ve been constantly amazed by how many things have changed since Server 2003. It is often a case of wasting time tracking down why things don’t work or where things are. Here are some of those that I discovered that should hopefully give someone else a heads up when they move to the technology.

Terminal Services

Tsadmin.exe got replaced with Tsadmin.mmc leading to annoyances when trying to type in the old command. Why can’t Microsoft just create shortcuts for things it moves around i’ll never know.

Using Terminal Services on Server 2008 has to now use the /admin switch instead of /console . Remote Admin in 2008 Server

Windows Search

 The search feature now only searches folders that are indexed by default, meaning that you have to go into advanced settings to check the box that says "Include non-indexed, hidden, and system files" to get the same search.

Sql Browser

The Sql Browser service usually has a timeout error whenever the server is restarted. This has meant that I either need to go and start it manually or edit the service properties to say, “Automatic – Deferred Start”.

Windows Firewall

 

The Firewall is turned on by default. It took me a long time to work out why I couldn’t connect and then finally I discovered this blog by Shawn Hernan where he describes the logic behind this change and how to correctly configure the firewall for different situations. Luckily in my environment, it was not internet facing and I could just configure the firewall with these steps:

1-Open the windows firewall with Advanced Security

2-Right click on onbound rules and select new rule

3-Create a port rule, click next

4-Choose TCP rile and choose ports 1433, 1444. Click next

5-Choose Allow the connection

6-Choose correct profile

7-Give it a name and a description for the inbound rule

8-Click finish

Gacutil

The GacUtil.exe utility does not seem to ship with Visual Studio 2008. This has to be download as part of the .Net SDK. It appears the correct version to use if one is running VS SP1 or above is actually the download designed for windows 7: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=c17ba869-9671-4330-a63e-1fd44e0e2505&displaylang=en

The GacUtil file will then appear in the folder: C:\Program Files\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\v7.0\Bin . Why its Windows 7 I will never know.

Anyone got any more they would care to share?

 

Just discovered something interesting the other day which I’d like to share. I was getting very odd and different results between two almost identical SSRS reports which were using a cube as a data source. The crutch of the report was a calculated measure that was stored in the cube and the only thing that was different between the reports was an additional column selected.
One of the reports was correct and the other was blatantly wrong, so just to test the theory I added the additional column which resulted in the correct report. But then strangely I deleted the column and the report still remained correct. A deeper dig into the generated MDX by both the original and the dodgy and I could see why.  (with of course the helpful formatting feature of Mosha’s MDX studio http://www.mosha.com/msolap/mdxstudio.htm)
Reporting services MDX generation essentially works by using recursive select statements for filtering\column addition. Adding the additional column had modified the MDX in a way that didn’t get undone when the column was deleted. What had resulted was the correct filtering of data that I was interested in. Which is good, because I solved the problem. However what I learned from the whole experience is never to just trust a fire and forget query generation tool, but to try and understand how the query is being generated and what question it is trying to answer. MDX can be fickle enough at the best of times but its just worth eyeballing the resulting query just to see if there are any nasties in there.