Just in case you missed the news, Service Pack 4 for SQL Server 2000 just shipped on May 5th. You can find the SP at http://www.microsoft.com/sql/downloads/2000/sp4.asp. There’s also a caveat from Microsoft - “Microsoft has found an issue with the final build of SP4 that impacts customers who run SQL Server with AWE support enabled. This issue only impacts machines with more than 2GB of memory where AWE has been explicitly enabled. Customers with this configuration should not install SP4. Microsoft is currently working on the problem and will issue an update soon.”
As I’ve tried to educate myself more about SQL Server 2005, one area that seems more grey than black and white is XQuery. From what I’ve gathered, XQuery is a sort of XML/SQL hybrid. There’s a cool interview with Michael Rys http://www.stylusstudio.com/michael_rys.html. Michael (a PhD, no less) is the Program Manager for the SQL Server Engine team at Microsoft and has final say on all things XML, XQuery, etc. You can also read Michael’s blog at http://sqljunkies.com/weblog/mrys/. It has lots of juicy tidbits as well.
I hope this helps,
-Kevin
