How to Check SQL Server Version?

In this article, we will look at several ways to find out the version and edition of the installed Microsoft SQL Server instance. For example, you are a DBA and you have been given the task of scheduling an upgrade on one of the SQL Server hosts. The first thought that comes to your mind is “How do I find out what version and edition of SQL Server is being used on a particular server?”.

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Setting Process CPU Affinity in Windows

By default, a running app in Windows can run on any of the available CPU cores. The operating system manages and distributes processes between cores. However, you can manually bind certain processes (applications) to processor cores in Windows using the Processor Affinity feature. Let’s see how to bind a program (process) to specific CPU cores in Windows.

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Postfix: Using Microsoft 365 as SMTP Relay

Postfix mail server is available in almost all Linux distributions. You can use it as a simple relay (smart host) to send email messages from your local network to user mailboxes and forward email queues to SMTP servers outside your organization. In this article, we’ll show you how to set up an SMTP relay for Microsoft 365 (Office 365, Exchange Online) with postfix on Linux (using Ubuntu/Debian as an example).

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Windows: Monitoring Logs and Text File Changes in Real Time

If a Windows service or application writes logs not to the Event Viewer (.evt and .evtx files), but to plain text log files, you sometimes need to display and monitor new events in real-time.

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Using Predictive IntelliSense in PowerShell

Predictive IntelliSense is a new feature in PSReadline 2.1 and is available by default in PowerShell 7.2. When typing a command in the PowerShell console, Predictive IntelliSense suggests the appropriate commands you have previously typed (using the history of previous PowerShell commands). Predictive IntelliSense works differently than the TAB auto-completion feature (or Bash’s TAB auto-completion). the suggestion of subsequent characters in the command is displayed in gray text after the cursor.

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Select-Object: Filtering Output in PowerShell

The Select-Object cmdlet allows you to display certain properties of an object in a PowerShell command. Select-Object can select unique objects, a specified number of objects, or objects at a specified position in an array. Also, some PowerShell cmdlets don’t display all of the object’s properties, and you must use Select-Object to display additional attributes.

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Renaming Mapped Network Drives in Windows

When you mount network drives in Windows (manually, via net use, or GPO), File Explorer shows the full UNC path to the mapped network folder as the drive name. In this example, the network shared folder \\DESKTOP-1FOH5A8\Share\Docs\Reports\2022 is mapped as drive Z:\. Displaying the network drive name as a UNC path is inconvenient for many users. In Windows, you can change the name of the mapped network drive through the registry.

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Protecting Active Directory OUs from Accidental Deletion

Active Directory has a special feature to protect against accidental deletion of directory objects (Organizational Units, users, groups, etc.). By default, the “Protect object from accidental deletion” option is enabled when creating new OUs.

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