RE: Ad hoc updates to system catalogs are not enabled

From: Billy Yao [MSFT] (v-binyao_at_online.microsoft.com)
Date: 01/23/04 

Date: Fri, 23 Jan 2004 09:51:33 GMT

Hi Peter,

Thank you for choosing Microsoft! Michael is on holiday and I'm his backup. My name is
Billy and it's my pleasure to further assist you with this issue.

I believe Machael has pointed out the root cause of your issue and his solution is accurate
and workable on your side. For your benefits, here I'd like to follow up with something
important you should pay more attention to, as the system catalogs are very critical to the
operation of SQL Server.

Please keep in mind that updating fields in system tables can prevent an instance of SQL
Server from running or can cause data loss. If you create stored procedures while the allow
updates option is enabled, those stored procedures always have the ability to update
system tables even after you disable allow updates. On production systems, you should not
enable allow updates except under the direction of Microsoft Product Support Services.

It is stongly recommend that you enable allow updates only in tightly controlled situations.
Prevent other users from accessing SQL Server while you are directly updating system
tables by restarting an instance of SQL Server from the command prompt with sqlservr -m.
This command starts an instance of SQL Server in single-user mode and enables allow
updates.

After successfully updating the system catalogs, please remember changing the allow
updates back to 0 AT ONCE, and then restart the instance services.

For more information on how to operate it in minimal configuration mode, please see the
following topic in Books Onlinie:

"Starting SQL Server with Minimal Configuration"

Thanks for choosing Microsoft.

Billy Yao
Microsoft Online Support
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