14 DAY TRIAL // The third service pack for SQL Server 2005 went live on December 15, 2008. Microsoft indicated that the release was designed to upgrade all service levels of SQL Server 2005 to Service Pack 3, as the services packed for the 2005 version of the database solution were cumulative. Users of the following SKUs of SQL Server 2005: Enterprise; Enterprise Evaluation; Developer; Standard; and Workgroup, are now able to make the jump to SP3. The software company emphasized that the focus with SP3 was to deliver all the hotfixes for SQL Server 2005 in a single package, but also to address various issues across the solution, in accordance with the user input.
“Microsoft released SQL Server 2005 Service Pack 3 (SP3). SQL 2005 version should now be 9.00.4035. Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Service Pack 3 (SP3) contains hotfixes that were included in cumulative update packages for SQL Server 2005 Service Pack 2 from cumulative update package 1 to cumulative update package 9, and fixes to issues that have been reported through our customer feedback platforms. It also includes supportability enhancements and issues that have been reported through Windows Error Reporting,” Christophe Fiessinger, senior technical product manager for Microsoft Office Project Server, explained.
At the same time, Microsoft has taken the SQL Server 2005 Database Engine, Notifications Services, Replication and Reporting Services to the next level. Having released SP3 in 32-bit, 64-bit and IA64 flavors, Microsoft informed that the x86 version of the refresh was capable of upgrading 32-bit instances of SQL Server 2005 running on Windows-on-Windows 64 x86 emulation mode on a x64 system, this in addition to the 32-bit versions of the Windows operating systems. For the 64-bit instance of SQL Server 2005, users will have to turn to the 64-bit variant of SP3, and the same is valid for IA64.
Nick MacKechnie, senior technical account manager at Microsoft New Zealand revealed that “If you are upgrading from SQL Server 2005 SP2 Cumulative Update 10, or from SQL Server 2005 SP2Cumulative Update 11, you must apply a post-SP3 cumulative update after you upgrade to SP3 to obtain all the fixes.”
SQL Server 2008 is available for download here.