Database Mail ships disabled; enabling it and wiring up an SMTP account, a profile, and a public principal grant are the steps that stand between a fresh SQL Server instance and sp_send_dbmail working reliably. The configuration script below executes all four setup calls inside msdb, fires a test message, and queries …

A cross-database table inventory is one of the most common ad hoc requests in any SQL Server environment — and one of the few queries that cannot be answered by staying inside a single database context. sys.databases exposes every online database on the instance; three-part name references to sys.tables inside dynamic …

A logging table grew to forty million rows, the bulk of it was archived out, and now only the last week's data remains — but the next insert still gets identity value 40,000,001, leaving a vast gap below it. Or a botched data load left the seed sitting far above the real maximum, and future inserts skip millions of …

Before renaming a column, retiring a view, or dropping a stored procedure, every DBA needs the answer to one question: what else depends on this object? This T-SQL script reads sys.sql_expression_dependencies and reports every referencing-and-referenced pair in the current database, with optional filtering to a single …

Every SQL Server installation ships with max server memory set to its default value of 2,147,483,647 MB — effectively unlimited — which allows the Buffer Pool to consume all available RAM and starve the operating system of the memory it needs for network stack, disk I/O, and other critical processes. This script reads …

MAXDOP (max degree of parallelism) controls how many CPU threads SQL Server can use for a single parallel query. The default value of 0 allows SQL Server to use all available processors, which can cause large parallel queries to monopolise the server. This script reads the CPU topology from system DMVs and calculates …

Report SQL Server Agent Job Status and Failure History This script queries the SQL Server Agent job history stored in msdb to produce a detailed report of each job's most recent run status, failure and success counts over the last 60 days, total lifetime run counts, and job step information including subsystem type and …

Kill SQL Server Sessions with Targeted Filters Using KILL and dm_exec_sessions This article covers a practical T-SQL script that kills one or more SQL Server sessions (SPIDs) while giving you precise control over which sessions are targeted. The script uses sys.dm_exec_sessions to query active sessions and a cursor to …

Search Stored Procedure and View Definitions in SQL Server This script searches the text of stored procedures, views, functions, and triggers in the current database using sys.sql_modules, returning any programmable object whose name or definition contains a given keyword. Purpose and Overview Finding which stored …

Search the SQL Server Error Log with xp_readerrorlog This script reads and filters the SQL Server error log using xp_readerrorlog and sys.sp_readerrorlog, supporting keyword search, date range filtering, and access to archived log files — all from T-SQL without touching the file system. Purpose and Overview The SQL …