Shrink Database Files and how to make MSDE not eat up all of your memory.

by Christopher Kusek (PKGuild) Informational, Microsoft, SQL, Windows Server

This is mainly for my reference, but if anyone else needs it, it is here as well.

If you do not know, by default MSDE 2000 (which is installed with a lot of applications) will by default eat up all of your available memory (up to 2gb). This is a very serious problem if you install an application with MSDE on an Exchange server, or other similarly shared servers. You’re best off limiting the memory. Some perfect examples are, on-box Anti-Spam Software, McAfee EPO, Blackberry BES Server, etc. So be aware.

DBCC SHRINKFILE(pubs_log, 2)

BACKUP LOG pubs WITH TRUNCATE_ONLY

BACKUP LOG pubs TO pubslogbackup

DBCC SHRINKFILE(pubs_log,2)

And if/when that does not work, you can also use…

DBCC OPENTRAN (database_name) – to check for open transactions.

DBCC SHRINKFILE (file_name, target_size)
DBCC SHRINKDATABASE (database_name, target_percent) – This works when shrinkfile hasn’t been working.

And to limit MSDE

Save as a .SQL File

USE master
EXEC sp_configure ‘show advanced options’, 1
RECONFIGURE WITH OVERRIDE USE master
EXEC sp_configure ‘max server memory (MB)’, MaxServerMemory
RECONFIGURE WITH OVERRIDE

USE master
EXEC sp_configure ‘show advanced options’, 0
RECONFIGURE WITH OVERRIDE

osql -E -S ServerComputerName\msfw -i Path\setchecksqlmemory.sql

*Update*

In the event that you need to do it all by hand using OSQL as a trusted connection, perform the following – Set to change it to 64mb of memory

————————————-

OSQL -E

USE master
EXEC sp_configure ‘show advanced options’, 1
RECONFIGURE WITH OVERRIDE

GO

USE master
EXEC sp_configure ‘max server memory’, 64
RECONFIGURE WITH OVERRIDE

GO

USE master
EXEC sp_configure ‘show advanced options’, 0
RECONFIGURE WITH OVERRIDE

GO

————————————-

That will drop the memory usage from 2gb down to 64MB almost immediately.
Disclaimer: the ‘max server memory’ keeps replacing the first single quote incorrectly, so it may need to be typed manually. Working on correcting.
INF: How to Shrink the SQL Server 7.0 Transaction Log

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/256650/

INF: Shrinking the Transaction Log in SQL Server 2000 with DBCC SHRINKFILE

http://www.support.microsoft.com/?id=272318

You may experience high memory usage on an ISA Server 2004-based computer that logs messages to an MSDE database

http://support.microsoft.com/?id=909636

OSQL Syntax

http://www.di-mgt.com.au/osqlUtility.htm

Christopher Kusek

*Updated this post to appear in 2007 as it’s been used more often than I did in September when I first posted this*