News

Microsoft Ships Hotfix for Latest SQL Service Pack

• By Stuart J Johnston
• March 7, 2007

Just two weeks after shipping a major new service pack for SQL Server 2005, Microsoft is having to issue a hotfix to correct a problem some customers experienced with the update.

Microsoft first shipped Service Pack 2, or SP2, on February 19. The main purpose of SP2 is to provide support for Windows Vista and Office 2007.

However, the company sent out a notice this week regarding a hotfix for an issue some customers have encountered in the two weeks since SP2 shipped.

“Microsoft recently uncovered an issue in SQL Server 2005 Service Pack 2 (SP2) which may impact customers using cleanup tasks in Maintenance Plans and SQL Server Integration Services packages,” said a Microsoft spokesperson in an e-mail on Tuesday.

The service pack includes an enhancement that lets users specify the cleanup interval in hours. When SQL Server 2005 was originally released, cleanup intervals were measured in days, in weeks, in months, or in years -- and Microsoft said the addition of being able to specify cleanup intervals in hours was based on customer feedback.

The service pack went through Microsoft’s community technology preview (CTP) process – part of the company’s changes about two years ago to improve code delivery. But a glitch got through the testing process.

“SP2 contained an issue that caused maintenance plan cleanup tasks to remove data before the specified cleanup interval,” according to company statements online.

The problem does not affect customers who have not yet installed SP2, or customers who downloaded SP2 after Monday, March 5, according to the spokesperson.

The hotfix is available for customers who downloaded SP2 prior to March 5.

Besides support for Vista and Office 2007, according to Microsoft statements, SP2 provides support for data compression, additional business intelligence capabilities and security updates relating to Common Criteria. It also includes manageability enhancements and the ability to access information in other databases, including Hyperion's Essbase and Oracle.

The SQL Server 2005 Service Pack 2 hotfix is available for download here.