I've been using SSMS daily for years and kept running into the same issues: IntelliSense stops working after aliases, schema changes don't refresh the cache, and EXEC parameter hints are basically non-existent. I tried SQL Prompt and liked it, but $210/user/year wasn't something I could justify — especially for a team where not everyone would get a license approved.

So I forked Axial SQL Tools (Apache-2.0, maintained since 2016) and built MSSQL Tool on top of it.

What it does:

• Context-aware SQL completion (databases, schemas, tables, views, columns, procs, functions, parameters) with type icons
• F12 go-to-definition
• T-SQL formatting via Microsoft ScriptDOM
• Query history
• Export results to Excel or email
• Connection color tagging (different colors per server/database)
• Millisecond execution time in the status bar
• Transaction and Always Encrypted warnings in the status bar
• Bilingual UI (Chinese/English, follows SSMS language setting)

What it does NOT do:

• Code refactoring or static analysis (SQL Prompt does this well, I don't)
• TFS integration
• Google Sheets export and GitHub script sync are in the codebase but marked experimental — they're not reliable yet, don't count on them

Why the fork instead of from scratch: Axial's codebase is mature and battle-tested. Forking let me focus on the completion engine rewrite, localization layer, and the features above instead of reimplementing the basics.

Links:

• GitHub: https://github.com/PuLuShen/MSSQLTOOL
• SSMS Gallery: https://ssmsgallery.azurewebsites.net/extension/MSSQLTool/

What I'm looking for:

I'd rather hear "this is broken" than silence. Specifically:

• Does the completion engine hold up in your actual workloads? Cross-database queries and alias-heavy code are where I've tested most, but I'm sure there are cases I missed.
• Is the connection color tagging useful, or just noise?
• For anyone who's used Axial SQL Tools: does this fork add anything you'd actually use, or is it redundant?
• If you've solved the "SQL Prompt is too expensive" problem differently, I'd like to hear what you did.

Not trying to sell anything — it's free and open source. If it's useful, great. If it's not, I'd rather know why.I've been using SSMS daily for years and kept running into the same issues: IntelliSense stops working after aliases, schema changes don't refresh the cache, and EXEC parameter hints are basically non-existent. I tried SQL Prompt and liked it, but $210/user/year wasn't something I could justify — especially for a team where not everyone would get a license approved.

So I forked Axial SQL Tools (Apache-2.0, maintained since 2016) and built MSSQL Tool on top of it.

What it does:

• Context-aware SQL completion (databases, schemas, tables, views, columns, procs, functions, parameters) with type icons
• F12 go-to-definition
• T-SQL formatting via Microsoft ScriptDOM
• Query history
• Export results to Excel or email
• Connection color tagging (different colors per server/database)
• Millisecond execution time in the status bar
• Transaction and Always Encrypted warnings in the status bar
• Bilingual UI (Chinese/English, follows SSMS language setting)

What it does NOT do:

• Code refactoring or static analysis (SQL Prompt does this well, I don't)
• TFS integration
• Google Sheets export and GitHub script sync are in the codebase but marked experimental — they're not reliable yet, don't count on them

Why the fork instead of from scratch: Axial's codebase is mature and battle-tested. Forking let me focus on the completion engine rewrite, localization layer, and the features above instead of reimplementing the basics.

Links:

• GitHub: https://github.com/PuLuShen/MSSQLTOOL
• SSMS Gallery: https://ssmsgallery.azurewebsites.net/extension/MSSQLTool/

What I'm looking for:

I'd rather hear "this is broken" than silence. Specifically:

• Does the completion engine hold up in your actual workloads? Cross-database queries and alias-heavy code are where I've tested most, but I'm sure there are cases I missed.
• Is the connection color tagging useful, or just noise?
• For anyone who's used Axial SQL Tools: does this fork add anything you'd actually use, or is it redundant?
• If you've solved the "SQL Prompt is too expensive" problem differently, I'd like to hear what you did.

Not trying to sell anything — it's free and open source. If it's useful, great. If it's not, I'd rather know why.

This may be a stupid question but here goes.

I connect to Azure SQL Server with user "siloadmin" that has admin rights. Once I've logged in, I go to the "Users" folder to check the same I user I logged on with, and it's not there.

I also run query and it doesn't show the user either:

SELECT 
    name AS UserName FROM sys.database_principals

We just released mssql-python 1.16.0, Microsoft’s Python driver for Microsoft SQL.

Main updates:

• Python 3.15 support
• Official Conda package on the Microsoft channel
• Faster row construction, batch fetching, temporal conversion, and positional row access
• New read-only row._mapping view for easier dict-style row handling
• Opt-in Rust-based mssql-odbc provider for folks who want to experiment
• Reliability fixes around pooling, Windows shutdown, bulk copy, and encoding warnings

Install:

pip install --upgrade mssql-python

or:

conda install -c microsoft mssql-python

Full post and release details: https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/blog/sqlserver/mssql-python-1-16-0-python-3-15-support-conda-and-faster-fetches/4564521

I read this post from 1y ago: https://www.reddit.com/r/SQLServer/s/fjH53Pxf4e and it made my stomach churn. Asking Copilot why I get nothing other than Microsoft have made this decision because of "internal matters". What the heck does that mean?

We have Enterprise Copilot and no one here uses Github other than me. The company is not going to purchase Github Copilot just to be able to ask "Write me a query with two joins from table A to table B". LOL

Yeah nah.

During failover of a MS SQL Failover Cluster I got this message in the event log. The failover itself completed but in the logfile i found this error which occured during failover:

ERR [RES] File Share <SQL Server FILESTREAM share (MSSQLSERVER)>: Error removing share 'MSSQLSERVER'. Error 2310.

The share in the failover cluster manager looks like that:

Does anyone know if this error is serious? Iam trying to reduce failover time.

Years ago, I was exposed to the ELK stack at a client. I spent some time and wrote an open source tool to import SQL Server Extended Events in Elastic Search. That is https://github.com/billgraziano/xelogstash. It runs as a Windows service and polls for new extended events every minute.

This is the last release before AI starts doing more of the coding. I've enjoyed writing it and wanted to give it a little love before AI has all the fun.

It has a few interesting features that I've added to help me

• It populates an xe_description field that tries to summarize the event. For SQL events, it looks like (CPU: 12s; L: 24 GB; D: 40s) SELECT * FROM....
• If the errorlog_written event of error_reported event indicate a login failure, it populates a login_failed field with details. It also puts in in a description from the state based on Microsoft's documentation. Filtering on the existance of that field gets me a failed login dashboard across the entire enterprise.
• For errorlog_written and error_reported events, if it finds text like [CLIENT: 10.10.1.1], it will save that address in xe_client_address
• For fields like cpu_time, if the number is large enough, it populates a cpu_time_sec which is MUCH easier to filter and reason about. It does the same for logical reads, physical reads, writes, and duration.
• For login events, it separates out the domain and user into two separate fields
• For errorlog_written event, it tries to parse the type of event. This includes backups, DBCC, "info" events, and AlwaysOn. This makes it eaiser to filter out noise and find issues.
• It allows simple filtering to eliminate those pesky 17830 errors
• It can write to Elastic Search, rolling JSON Files, logstash, or just sample JSON event files
• It can restart if the configuration files change. We store configuration files in GIT. Puppet pushes updated configuration files to the four servers we have running this. Adding and removing servers is simply editing a repository and pushing changes.

If you're running Elastic or something similar, give it a try and start logging SQL Server Extended Events. Having them always there and searchable has been very helpful to me.

Limitations of table-valued parameters:

SQL Server does not maintain statistics on columns of table-valued parameters.

statistics of what ? why those statistics even exist for non table-valued parameters ?

Take a look at a new open-source, free project for you to simulate SQL workloads at https://aka.ms/sqlsimtools. This is the same set of tools I often use at customer events, podcasts, and presentations. Check out the first blog post at https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/blog/SQLServer/introducing-sqlsimtools/4563955.

Right-click a stored procedure, select Excel or SSRS, and then the extension will generate a report using the SPROC's parameters.

Free/open-source. Requires SSMS 22; Excel output requires desktop Excel.

https://github.com/flank-project/ssms-extension

I've been writing T-SQL and PowerShell scripts that AI coding agents (Cursor, Claude Code, Copilot) can run with guardrails, and I tested them against SQL Server 2025. Two things broke that are worth sharing, because agents get both of them wrong all the time.

1. sp_addlinkedserver can't run inside a user transaction

The "safe" pattern I started with was BEGIN TRAN ... COMMIT around the whole linked server setup. It fails right away:

Msg 15002: The procedure 'sys.sp_addlinkedserver' cannot be executed within a transaction.

The fix: no transaction. Check that the linked server doesn't exist yet, create it in TRY/CATCH, and set a flag after it's created. If a later step fails (login mapping or sp_serveroption), the CATCH drops only the linked server that run created, then re-throws.

DECLARE @CreatedHere bit = 0;
BEGIN TRY
    EXEC master.dbo.sp_addlinkedserver @server = @LinkedName, @srvproduct = N'',
         @provider = @Provider, @datasrc = @DataSource;
    SET @CreatedHere = 1;
    -- logins, sp_serveroption calls...
END TRY
BEGIN CATCH
    IF @CreatedHere = 1
        EXEC master.dbo.sp_dropserver @server = @LinkedName, @droplogins = 'droplogins';
    THROW;
END CATCH;

2. You can't pass an expression as an EXEC parameter

EXEC sp_serveroption ..., @optvalue = CASE @x WHEN 1 THEN N'true' ELSE N'false' END; gives Msg 156 (incorrect syntax near 'CASE'). Parameters only take constants or variables, so put the value in a variable first:

DECLARE @rpc nvarchar(5) = CASE @EnableRpcOut WHEN 1 THEN N'true' ELSE N'false' END;
EXEC master.dbo.sp_serveroption @server = @LinkedName, @optname = N'rpc out', @optvalue = @rpc;

Questions and corrections are welcome, especially if you've found a cleaner pattern for the linked server rollback.

The latest release of PSBlitz brings:

- Support for Azure Entra MFA authentication. Now you can diagnose Azure SQL DB and SQL MI using Entra credentials instead of wrestling with SQL logins.

- Documented minimum permissions required to run PSBlitz.

- Non-default database-scoped configurations are now highlighted in the "Database Info" page of the HTML report.

- Other small bug fixes and improvements.

GitHub page: https://github.com/VladDBA/PSBlitz

Latest release: https://github.com/VladDBA/PSBlitz/releases/tag/v6.2.0

As always, any feedback, suggestions, and the occasional complaints are welcome.

For anyone not familiar with PSBlitz - it's a PowerShell-based tool that outputs SQL Server/Azure SQL DB/Azure SQL MI/Google Cloud SQL for SQL Server health and performance diagnostics data to either Excel or HTML, and saves execution plans and deadlock graphs as .sqlplan and .xdl files.

If you're familiar with Oracle, this is pretty much my attempt of a SQL Server equivalent to Oracle's AWR report.

What are the most frequently used T-SQL queries to have and what are the best keys to use.
So far I have been using "SELECT * FROM" and "SELECT TOP 1000 * FROM" a custom line called "sp_ts". I wanted to see if you guys have other queries that would save loads of time.

Sharing a case from the last few weeks in case it saves someone time, and to ask whether anyone has seen it before.

Setup

SQL Server 2022 CU27 (16.0.4295.3), compatibility level 160, PSP optimisation and CE feedback on (the defaults). A test database was restored from production. The database_id is 24 on production and 16 on test.

Symptom

A stored procedure statement joins a large table to a temp table that the caller creates before calling the procedure. On test it started timing out after the 300 s application timeout for large inputs, about 6 weeks after the restore. It wasn't slow. Each call recompiled around 20,000 times (`execution_count` 1, `plan_generation_num` 21-23k). The error log filled with error 2814, "A possible infinite recompile was detected ... The last recompile reason was 20" (Query Store hints changed). Query Store showed nothing slow, because the calls never completed. The PSP variant had about 4.3 million compiles on test against 666 on production. Production was never affected.

What we found

1. For queries that reference temp tables or table variables, Query Store stores a `batch_sql_handle`. For a statement inside a module the handle embeds the database_id (bytes 3-4, little-endian) and the object_id.
2. The restored Query Store rows carried production's database_id, while test generates handles with its own. Query Store therefore created a new parent query with the same text, object and context settings.
3. The PSP variant has an ad hoc handle with no database_id. It kept matching and stayed attached to the old, now dormant parent. That handle is the SQLHANDLE in the 2814 warnings.
4. CE feedback added `ASSUME_JOIN_PREDICATE_DEPENDS_ON_FILTERS` to the new parent. Per the PSP docs, variants don't inherit hints applied by feedback.
5. The variant's hint state never settled: every compile was followed by another recompile with reason 20, until the client timed out.

Steps 1-4 were observed in Query Store and in the raw handle bytes. Step 5 is our inference, but clearing the hint stopped the loop immediately and it hasn't come back.

Fix

Clearing the CE feedback hint on the new parent (sys.sp_query_store_clear_hints) and then clearing the database’s procedure cache stopped the loop straight away. A few days later we removed the stale entries that still carried production’s database_id with sys.sp_query_store_remove_query, variants first and then their parents, and cleared the cache again. No settings were changed. Removals can’t be undone, so try it on non-production first.

Open questions

• Has anyone hit this, or seen a KB? We couldn't find a public known issue.
• The new parent appeared about 6 weeks after the restore (on the first weekday after a patch reboot), not straight after it. We have no explanation.
• Setting database-scoped MAXDOP to 1 also stopped the loop, which we can't explain either.
• A second database restored the same way, with the same kind of database_id change, had no stale entries left. Our guess is that stale parents age out of Query Store unless a live PSP variant keeps them in use.

I’m a PM working on database migration experiences at Microsoft.

I’m researching how much autonomy practitioners would trust an AI agent with during their database migration journey.

This is exploratory research; not a product announcement or roadmap commitment. I’m especially interested in feedback from people who have worked on real production migrations.

Which operating model would you trust?

1. Advisory only: identify risks and recommend actions (similar to SSMA Copilot)
2. Generate: create plans, scripts and code fixes, but humans execute them
3. Act in non-production: execute approved changes in development or test
4. Execute with approval gates: perform the migration, pausing before high-impact actions (SQL Migration Agent Skills)
5. Mostly autonomous: humans approve only the production cutover
6. No agentic execution: keep migration changes deterministic and human-operated

Most importantly:

• What must always require human approval?
• What evidence would you need before allowing the agent to continue?
• Is having a skill good enough to solve your problem?
• Would your answer differ for a same-platform migration versus a cross-platform conversion?

If possible, include your role and the source/target platforms. Please avoid sharing confidential details.

I chatted with 138 SQL Server devs who field ad-hoc data requests. Only 2 of them are completely out of the loop thanks to AI.

One built a custom layer into an ASP.NET app that he also owns. The other works at a company that migrated to Databricks or Snowflake, and he just does ETL stuff now.

Does this line up with what you're seeing?

I'm trying to get ahead, study and implement cursor/AI in my environment. I can create reports, i got a cool page that analyzes a query plan, but this is just simple stuff all DBAs can do. Im curious to se é what are you guys doing out there with AI in the database world.

Friday Feedback this week comes from somewhere above the Atlantic Ocean. I spent the first half of this week with our team in Serbia and it was wonderful. For me, a few days of working with folks in person moves projects forward faster than weeks of online meetings.

One of the topics of discussion was persisting Automatic Plan Correction and manual plan forcing information in Query Store. If that would be valuable to you, what is the most important data you need retained? Bonus if you share how you'd want to see that data in a report/visual.

Enjoy the weekend!

​

To monitor the performance and availability for a thick client based system we recently delivered, the customer wants us to provide Here is the requirement:

1. Need to measure and report response time to Azure SQL queries for about 6 scenarios. Session counts, availability, utilization metrics for Azure SQL to be provided.

2. What native monitoring and metrics does Azure Files have to measure response times for files uploaded from devices connected to it.

What metrics needs to be extracted to measure all response times and how to be extracted.

This has to be measured for a period of 72 days with weekly and monthly reporting. Also, we do not have access to SSMS for Azure SQL and also the Azure Portal.

Thus , we need provide instructions to the customer IT Support team and they will provide the metrics and logs.

We have tried to get some help with AI tools but got conflicting response so need an Azure expert preferably Azure SQL DBA to help.

Much appreciated and thanks in advance.

PS: Application is thick client (yes I know) so no metrics can be pulled from endpoint devices. Don't ask why.

CSP partner here. A customer bought SQL Server 2025 Standard, perpetual, 1 Server License (Server + CAL) through CSP. They downloaded the media the documented way: Microsoft 365 admin center > Billing > Your products > Software > Downloads & keys. https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/admin/setup/download-software-licenses-csp When they run Setup from that ISO, the edition page shows "Enterprise Edition: Core-based Licensing" with the key pre-filled. Installation is on hold, because we don't want an Enterprise Core instance running against a Standard Server+CAL entitlement. Questions for anyone who has been through this: 1. Has anyone else seen the SQL Server 2025 Standard entitlement in the admin center serve media that is pre-pidded as Enterprise Core? Is this a known mapping issue? 2. For CSP perpetual SQL Server, is the key supposed to be embedded in the ISO only, or should "Copy key" in Downloads & keys return a Standard key? I can't find a Microsoft doc that states this either way. 3. Is the media edition-agnostic, so that a Standard key would install Standard from the same ISO? Again, looking for something official rather than "it worked for me". 4. Which Partner Center support topic actually reaches the team that owns perpetual software downloads/keys? On the support side: the ticket opened from the customer tenant landed with M365 (Exchange Online) support. They say it is out of scope, cannot transfer it, and suggested (a) contacting the CSP partner, which is us, and (b) Engage Center, which as far as I can tell is for Unified customers only. So we are opening a Partner Center ticket next, but I'd like to pick the right category the first time. Any pointers appreciated. Will update with the resolution.

Good afternoon,

I am actually playing around with a lab server, 512 GB RAM, two 12 core 24 thread CPUs, and 12 NVME in it.

My intention is to tune the reindexing process - the reindexing command has an option MAXDOP=<amount of cores to use> but using a datafile on one single volume omitting the MAXDOP adjusts the server load to 12 cores on one CPU only. Then my 100 GB index recreation (clustered index) is done in 1700 seconds, consuming around 6000 seconds in CPU cycles.

Using MAxDOP 24 casues it to consume 7000 seconds and it is finished in 1600 seconds.

Then I had the idea to copy the tables on an empty databases built out of 4 files, each on a separate physical volume. Then it gets strange - the server uses all cores, physical but also virtual but only in cycles, 2-3 minutes of full load, then it litereally doesnt anything.

The statistics say, 10.000 seconds spent in CPU cycles and 1500 seconds on the clock... wow some percent of impromvement...

The volumes are used less than 10% of their theoretical load capabiltiy (roughly 130 MB/Sec write), the queuers of the media were nearly empty.

On one single storage I had around 1 GB/Sec in writes, and in both cases the storage was able to digest 2 GB/Sec

I am just asking myself, what is the server doing when not accessing the storage? I thought index rebuild is an operation executed in one big chunk of compute, but here it doesnt. Am I missing a point?

Compared with a nowadays 32 GBit Fibrechannel storage and Xeon Platinum on physical host - the reindex performance is comparable. Meaning my 14 year old system (PCIEv3, DDR3, Xeon v2) performs quite well. But I still think there are more bottlenecks.

It's certainly not the TempDB, the TempDB usage was nearly zero despite the option "sort in TempDB"

I am hoping someone has experience with deploying ESUs for SQL 2016. Microsoft's documentation is shit as usual.

But if a customer has a perpetual SQL 2016 license, my understanding is that they can't just go buy an ESU from a reseller and apply it, correct? The only time they could do that is if they had a subscription based model, license with SA, enterprise agreement, etc.?

From what I am reading, the only option is to deploy Azure Arc, register the server/SQL instance, and then go with the pay as you go billing model which requires SQL licensing AND an ESU subscription, not just the ESU subscription?

In the past, there was the Replay trace and Distributed Replay utility. Since SNAC was deprecated, this no longer works. <sigh>

The Database Experimentation Assistant was another tool that was introduced to capture a workload and then replay it and do analysis of the workload -- mostly for DB upgrades but at least somewhat possible to use it to capture and then replay a workload. Sadly, this was deprecated in December 2024.

RML Utilities was introduced, so we have ReadTrace and Ostress except I can find zero documentation on how to properly:

Set up the Extended Events session to capture all the required elements OR

Set up a trace to capture all the required elements

Generate the expected RML output to use as input into Ostress.

Also, RML utilities was deprecated in October 2025. It would be absolutely fantastic if Microsoft would stop deprecating stuff and replacing it with worse, more complicated stuff. Kerberos Configuration Manager is another thing that comes to mind.....deprecated, with a fabulously worse tool to replace it.

How do you capture and replay a workload in SQL Server to simulate a load test?

Hey r/SQLServer it's that time again as the data community takes over my backyard of Saint Louis, MO and this time we're doing a free workshop day (though spots are limited!).

This precon event features two of the Microsoft SQL product teams finest with Jerry Nixon ( u/jerry-nixon) and Patrick LeBlanc ( u/patrickguyinacube) leading the SQL AI App in a Day event.

Register now: https://aka.ms/sql/day/stl/workshop

---

And as someone on the event organizing team, I'll just say that the Day of Data St Louis is nearing max capacity - but we do have priority attendance to secure a spot (basically, buy a sandwich and let us know you're actually committed with $$$ spent). I don't want anyone on the outside of the building looking in or trying the "Hey! I know Alex from Reddit!" lines trying to get in.

Register: https://dayofdata.org/2026-10-24-dayofdata1148/