Have you ever wondered how easily to extract non-default SQL Server instance settings? Well recently I had to perform such task so I can apply those changed settings to a new instance that was replacing the current one. And the only thing that came to my mind was to extract all settings in Excel and then compare them one by one with the settings of this new instance. Later on when I was browsing in SSMS reports I noticed that in the “Server Dashboard” report there was such section. It was definitely not that visible and I felt quite lucky I found it.
So there is the script you can use (it is straight extract from the report source):
begin try
declare @configurations_option_table table (
name nvarchar(128)
, run_value bigint
, default_value bigint
);
declare @sp_configure_table table (
name nvarchar(128)
, minimum bigint
, maximum bigint
, config_value bigint
, run_value bigint
);
declare @tracestatus table(
TraceFlag nvarchar(40)
, Status tinyint
, Global tinyint
, Session tinyint
);
insert into @sp_configure_table
select name
, convert(bigint,minimum)
, convert(bigint,maximum)
, convert(bigint,value)
, convert(bigint,value_in_use)
from sys.configurations
insert into @configurations_option_table values('Ad Hoc Distributed Queries',0,0)
insert into @configurations_option_table values('affinity I/O mask',0,0)
insert into @configurations_option_table values('affinity mask',0,0)
insert into @configurations_option_table values('Agent XPs',0,0)
insert into @configurations_option_table values('allow updates',0,0)
insert into @configurations_option_table values('awe enabled',0,0)
insert into @configurations_option_table values('blocked process threshold',0,0)
insert into @configurations_option_table values('c2 audit mode',0,0)
insert into @configurations_option_table values('clr enabled',0,0)
insert into @configurations_option_table values('cost threshold for parallelism',5,5)
insert into @configurations_option_table values('cross db ownership chaining',0,0)
insert into @configurations_option_table values('cursor threshold',-1,-1)
insert into @configurations_option_table values('Database Mail XPs',0,0)
insert into @configurations_option_table values('default full-text language',1033,1033)
insert into @configurations_option_table values('default language',0,0)
insert into @configurations_option_table values('default trace enabled',1,1)
insert into @configurations_option_table values('disallow results from triggers',0,0)
insert into @configurations_option_table values('fill factor (%)',0,0)
insert into @configurations_option_table values('ft crawl bandwidth (max)',100,100)
insert into @configurations_option_table values('ft crawl bandwidth (min)',0,0)
insert into @configurations_option_table values('ft notify bandwidth (max)',100,100)
insert into @configurations_option_table values('ft notify bandwidth (min)',0,0)
insert into @configurations_option_table values('index create memory (KB)',0,0)
insert into @configurations_option_table values('in-doubt xact resolution',0,0)
insert into @configurations_option_table values('lightweight pooling',0,0)
insert into @configurations_option_table values('locks',0,0)
insert into @configurations_option_table values('max degree of parallelism',0,0)
insert into @configurations_option_table values('max full-text crawl range',4,4)
insert into @configurations_option_table values('max server memory (MB)',2147483647,2147483647)
insert into @configurations_option_table values('max text repl size (B)',65536,65536)
insert into @configurations_option_table values('max worker threads',0,0)
insert into @configurations_option_table values('media retention',0,0)
insert into @configurations_option_table values('min memory per query (KB)',1024,1024)
insert into @configurations_option_table values('min server memory (MB)',0,0)
insert into @configurations_option_table values('nested triggers',1,1)
insert into @configurations_option_table values('network packet size (B)',4096,4096)
insert into @configurations_option_table values('Ole Automation Procedures',0,0)
insert into @configurations_option_table values('open objects',0,0)
insert into @configurations_option_table values('PH timeout (s)',60,60)
insert into @configurations_option_table values('precompute rank',0,0)
insert into @configurations_option_table values('priority boost',0,0)
insert into @configurations_option_table values('query governor cost limit',0,0)
insert into @configurations_option_table values('query wait (s)',-1,-1)
insert into @configurations_option_table values('recovery interval (min)',0,0)
insert into @configurations_option_table values('remote access',1,1)
insert into @configurations_option_table values('remote admin connections',0,0)
insert into @configurations_option_table values('remote login timeout (s)',20,20)
insert into @configurations_option_table values('remote proc trans',0,0)
insert into @configurations_option_table values('remote query timeout (s)',600,600)
insert into @configurations_option_table values('Replication XPs',0,0)
insert into @configurations_option_table values('RPC parameter data validation',0,0)
insert into @configurations_option_table values('scan for startup procs',0,0)
insert into @configurations_option_table values('server trigger recursion',1,1)
insert into @configurations_option_table values('set working set size',0,0)
insert into @configurations_option_table values('show advanced options',0,0)
insert into @configurations_option_table values('SMO and DMO XPs',1,1)
insert into @configurations_option_table values('SQL Mail XPs',0,0)
insert into @configurations_option_table values('transform noise words',0,0)
insert into @configurations_option_table values('two digit year cutoff',2049,2049)
insert into @configurations_option_table values('user connections',0,0)
insert into @configurations_option_table values('user options',0,0)
insert into @configurations_option_table values('Web Assistant Procedures',0,0)
insert into @configurations_option_table values('xp_cmdshell',0,0)
insert into @tracestatus exec('dbcc tracestatus')
update @tracestatus set TraceFlag = 'Traceflag ('+TraceFlag+')'
select 1 as l1
, st.name as name
, convert(nvarchar(15),st.run_value) as run_value
, convert(nvarchar(15),ct.default_value) as default_value
, 1 as msg
from @configurations_option_table ct
inner join @sp_configure_table st on (ct.name = st.name and ct.default_value != st.run_value)
union
select 1 as l1
, TraceFlag as name
, convert(nvarchar(15), Status) as run_value
, '0' as default_value
, 1 as msg
from @tracestatus where Global=1 order by name
end try
begin catch
select -100 as l1
, ERROR_NUMBER() as name
, ERROR_SEVERITY() as run_value
, ERROR_STATE() as default_value
, ERROR_MESSAGE() as msg
end catch
) but according to some articles there is going to be a change in the DMVs we are so used to and keen on. One of them would be “sys.dm_exec_query_stats DMV which is extended with additional columns to improve supportabilities over troubleshooting long-running queries”. Of course there is and quite a long list with fixed bugs but I will leave to you to check them out here.
There are quite cool SQL Server management reports published just for that purpose and they go under the name of SQL Server Performance Dashboard reports. They are released for SQL Server 2005 and you can download them from 
It is actually just one simple application called BIDS (ha ha, yes, this is Microsoft’s Business Intelligence Development Studio, included in SQL Server installation media). But not just any BIDS, but 2005. SSMS have never been upgraded to use the 2008 report viewer component, so the only way your report to be loaded is if it is written on BIDS 2005. For further reference you can check 
