database-tools Archives

Calculating First and Last Day of Month

For reporting and similar use cases, scripts may require the first and last day in a given month. The first day is easy, yet the last day depends on...

Formatting a DateTime

by ps1

Whenever you have a true DateTime (and not a string, for example), you have plenty of powerful ways to format. You can get DateTime objects...

Extracting Windows Installation Date

by ps1

Ever wondered how old your Windows installation is? A one-liner can tell: PS> (Get-CimInstance -Class Win32_OperatingSystem).InstallDate Freitag,...

Monitor the performance of SQL Server in the hybrid cloud

by Peter

As organizations migrate their databases to the cloud, database administrators need to consistently manage databases on-premise and in the cloud...

Hide OneDrive from File Explorer

by ps1

Are you tired of OneDrive icons polluting your file explorer tree view? If you don’t use OneDrive, then here are two handy functions that hide...

Turn a Windows Server into a Workstation

by ps1

PowerShell 5 and later releases come with a cmdlet to automatically add new Windows features, so if you are running a Windows Server and would like...

Automatically Printing to XPS Files

by ps1

XPS is a document format similar to PDF from Microsoft. Although it never really was used in a large scale, it can still be a valuable internal...

Resolutions for your Data Management Strategy

by Ron Huizenga

As 2019 has just begun, it’s a good time to assess what you accomplished last year and what goals to set for the new year. It's also a great...

Specifying Planned Downtime In Precise

by billellis

When you're young, you call it a "blackout" period. When you're older, it becomes "planned downtime". Precise AdminPoint,...

Removing BOM from the Unicode Files

by ps1

BOM (Byte Order Mask) is a characteristic byte sequence used in some Unicode encoded text files. If you receive text files with BOM that need to be...

PowerShell Cheat Sheet Compilation (Part 2)

by ps1

In the previous tip we pointed you to a great compilation of PowerShell cheat sheets. Let’s now check out how easily PowerShell can download...

Using SQL Secure to monitor SQL Instances and Databases running on Azure

by Binh Chau

As companies migrate more and more applications and data to the cloud using services like Azure and Amazon, it is important to ensure that the SQL...

Open Precise on Statistics View showing Health

by billellis

Precise's Statistics view provides DBAs with a quick assessment of overall health. One way to go directly to this view is via Favorites in...

PowerShell Cheat Sheet Compilation (Part 1)

by ps1

Here is a great compilation of popular PowerShell cheat sheets, completely free and ready for download:...

Get Text File Encoding

by ps1

Text files can be stored using different encodings, and to correctly reading them, you must specify the encoding. That’s why most cmdlets...

Controlling PowerShell Transparency with Mouse Wheel

by ps1

On Windows 10, when you hold CTRL+SHIFT and then move your mouse wheel, you can easily control the transparency of console window, including the...

Retrieving Windows Product Key

by ps1

Here is a one-liner that retrieves your original Windows product key: (Get-WmiObject -Class...

Printing PDF Files (Part 2)

by ps1

In the previous tip we explained how PowerShell can send PDF documents to the default PDF printer. This generic approach is OK for simple scenarios...

How to troubleshoot locking problems in SQL Server with Dynamic Management Views

by Peter

Database professionals are often called upon to investigate performance problems related to locking, but most investigations into locking rarely go...

Printing PDF Files (Part 1)

by ps1

To automatically print PDF documents, unfortunately you cannot use Out-Printer. Out-Printer can only send pure text documents to a printer. However,...