Find Missing SQL Server Data with NOT EXISTS
After years of writing T-SQL a certain way, changing can be tough. When comparing tables for missing rows, developers often use LEFT JOIN.
2026-01-19
Articles
SQL Server Privilege Escalation via Replication Jobs
Learn how attackers can exploit SQL Server replication cleanup jobs to escalate privileges from db_owner to sysadmin
2026-01-16
Faster Data Engineering with Python Notebooks: The Fabric Modern Data Platform
In this next article on the Fabric Modern Data Platform, we use the Polars library in Python to improve our data engineering.
2026-01-14
1,667 reads
Power BI – Download, Install and Create Your First Report
Power BI Desktop is Microsoft’s platform for analytics and visualization. The product has been around for over ten years, making it a mature feature-rich choice for business intelligence reporting and actionable insights. How do you get started downloading, installing, and configuring Power BI desktop?
2026-01-14
SQL Server 2025 Build List
This is a list of the builds for SQL Server 2025. There are other build lists available here. A list of all the builds that I can find and install on my Build VM. If you find a build not listed here, please let the webmaster know (webmaster at sqlservercentral.com). All builds are listed in reverse […]
2026-01-13 (first published: 2025-11-24)
235 reads
Semantic Search in SQL Server 2025
Learn how we can search text values in SQL Server 2025 using the new AI capabilities.
2026-01-12
2,662 reads
Common SQL Server Problems: Invalid Object Name
Learn why SQL Server shows ‘Invalid object name’ errors and how to fix them.
2026-01-12
T-SQL in SQL Server 2025: Encoding Functions
Learn about these new binary encoding and decoding functions in SQL Server 2025.
2026-01-09
2,341 reads
Generating Shape Bound Random Points in SQL Server
Random number generation is vital in computer science, supporting fields like optimization, simulation, robotics, and gaming. The quality, speed, and sometimes security of the generator can directly affect an algorithm’s correctness, performance, and competitiveness. In Python, random number generation is well-supported and widely used. In this article, we will look how to we can use SQL to do this.
2026-01-09
PowerShell Day By Day: The Pipeline
In this article, I wanted to discuss the PowerShell (PoSh) pipeline, which was confusing to me at first and took some time to get used to working with. I had used one in Linux before, but the PoSh one is more powerful, but also slightly different. Hopefully I can demystify some of the concepts for […]
2026-01-07 (first published: 2020-12-31)
6,048 reads
Blogs
Deploying an Updated Model with SQL Compare 16
By Steve Jones
In a previous post, I deployed a model to a database using SQL Compare...
Reality (And Limits) of Instant File Initialization for Transaction Logs in SQL Server 2022
By SQLPals
Reality (And Limits) of Instant File Initialization for Transaction Logs in SQL Server 2022 ...
Looking Back at the Redgate 2026 Company Kickoff
By Steve Jones
Last week I spent a few days in Cambridge, UK for the Redgate Company...
Forums
Create filegroups in partition
I have a table with partition on create_timestamp field. Though we're storing all data...
Adding and Dropping Columns II
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Adding and Dropping Columns II
Leveraging DuckDB for OLAP Workloads: The Fabric Modern Data Platform
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Leveraging DuckDB for OLAP Workloads:...
Question of the Day
Adding and Dropping Columns II
I have this table in my SQL Server 2022 database:
CREATE TABLE [dbo].[CityList] ( [CityNameID] [int] NOT NULL IDENTITY(1, 1), [CityName] [varchar] (30) , [Country2] [char] (3), [stateprovince2] [char] (2), [Country] [char] (3), [stateprovince] [char] ) ON [PRIMARY] GOI decide to drop the stateprovince2 and country2 columns. What code should I use? See possible answers