Monthly Archives: September 2017

The Explorer bits in SQL BAK Explorer

The left panel in SQL BAK Explorer is essentially a Windows Explorer clone, and shares the same features as found in Easy Explorer.  In this blog, I’ll describe some of the cooler things you can do in the Explorer panel.

Bookmarks!  If you access a folder frequently, simply drag the folder from the Explorer window to the ‘Bookmarks bar’ area.  A bookmark is created for you.  Simply click on that bookmark to open the folder.

 

Filters!  If you want the Explorer window to display only files with the bak extension, simply enter bak in the filter window and click Apply.  Now, only bak files will be displayed in the Explorer window in every folder you browse to.

 

Default layouts!  Say you want the explorer window to be of a certain size, the default folder to be a particular folder, the backup summary panel to be this size, the SQL Window editor area to be that size etc.  First, set up the panels exactly as how you want them to appear every time when SQL BAK Explorer starts.  Then click on the Set as default button.

 

More bookmarks!  In addition to the bookmarks bar mentioned above, you can also maintain bookmarks in a menu.  You can group bookmarks in categories, to make them easier to organize.

SQL BAK Explorer 2.0 released

We just released SQL BAK Explorer 2.0 today, and the significant addition is that of a Query Window.

As some of you may know, SQL BAK Explorer stores backup details of the files it reads in a SQL Server Compact database.  There are 5 tables used to store the details i.e.

  • backupset
  • backupmediaset
  • backupmediafamily
  • backupfile
  • backupfilegroup

The structure of these tables are similar to the same tables found in the msdb database, so if you’ve ever queried for backup details in msdb, you’ll feel right at home here.

So in the Query Window, you simply enter a query to retrieve the backup details you want e.g.

If you want to return multiple result sets, end each query with a semi-colon, and start each query on a new line e.g.

The SQL syntax for SQL Server Compact is fairly similar to the SQL Server syntax, so if you are already familiar with SQL Server query syntax, writing for SQL Server Compact should be easy.

SQL BAK Explorer 1.0 released

We just released SQL BAK Explorer, which is a useful tool to work with SQL Server backup files.  Basically, it can read the backup details off the backup files without requiring SQL Server.  The details it can provide are almost similar to what you can retrieve using the RESTORE HEADERONLY and RESTORE FILELISTONLY commands.  It supports backup files created using SQL Server 2005 up to SQL Server 2017.  However, it doesn’t support encrypted backup files.

Beyond just listing out the backup details, you can also view the details of multiple backup files simultaneously, in a summary window.  This makes it easy to compare backup set details.

Since we already have the backup details, SQL BAK Explorer can also generate the restore script for you.  The restore script for a full database backup will include the MOVETO options, so that you can easily move the database files around.  Hints are also provided on how much disk space is required.

Each time a backup file is read, SQL BAK Explorer stores the backup details in a local database.  The next time the same file is selected, the details are read from the database instead of re-reading the file again.  This allows the backup details to be displayed very fast.  In addition, SQL BAK Explorer can search this database for files making up a complete backup media set, when generating the restore script for a backup that has been split across multiple files.

 

If there is anything you would like to see added to SQL BAK Explorer, please do drop us a line at support@yohz.com.

Download the free 14-day trial now, or learn more about SQL BAK Explorer.

SQL Blob Viewer 4 – email notifications added

→ This article refers to SQL Blob Viewer, which has now been renamed to SQL Image Viewer.  The techniques described in this blog is still applicable, as the functionality of the product remains the same.  Only the name has changed.

SQL Blob Viewer 4 was released last month, with a bunch of usability improvements.

One of it is the ability to send email notifications for the export process.  With the Professional Edition, you can schedule export jobs to run using the Windows Task Scheduler.  Previously, the job would run, and a log generated of the export process.  If there were any errors raised, you would only know about it if you inspected the log.

With email notifications, you can now receive a copy of the log via email.  You can also choose to have emails to be sent only when errors are raised.  The email options are configured in the Export Wizard.

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Before email notifications can be sent, you would need to set up your SMTP mail settings first.

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