One of the annoying items about SQL for me is that it wants to bury your database files deep within the Windows program folder for your SQL install. I really don’t want to dig down 7 levels of folder structure to get to my files. I can see how that might be handy and serve as a layer of protection, but for me it’s just annoying.

It took me awhile to find it, but I’ve now found where you can set your default file locations for databases. It’s actually pretty obvious where it is now, but that makes me think they’ve changed how you set this preference. If I didn’t find it before, surely it couldn’t have been that easy initially.

Right click on your main SQL server database and select “Properties” from the right-click menu. Then click on the item labeled “Database Settings”. Almost to the bottom of the screen is a location to specify where you want to keep your database files. You can select different locations for the data and the log file, which could help with management in the future as well, depending on your personal use preferences.

Hopefully that may help you if you’re looking for this in the future. I’m now debating on storing my database files on a removable USB external drive. Just not sure about the risk of storing them on that type of device instead of the main computer hard drive. Does anyone else have experience with SQL databases in this format?

Post from: EveryJoe

Setting Default File Locations on SQL Server

I’ve been running now on my recently wiped and refreshed laptop. Everything is going well except for one thing. I probably should have connected the laptop to my domain before doing just about anything else.

You see now, I’ve got all these personalized settings. Applications installed. Preferences configured, etc., etc., but they’re all setup on my local computer user login.

When I connected to the domain at work, all my preferences are useless on the new domain user that’s created.

My question is does anyone know of a safe and successful way of merging a local user account with a domain user account on the same machine? I tried a method I found online that including copying the user settings folders over each other and then editing the registry to point the old user to the new user with the new user’s unique system user ID. That didn’t work as planned.

Anyone else have some suggestions for me to try?

Post from: EveryJoe

How Do I Merge a Local and Domain User Account