Problem restoring a database to a SQL Server 2012 LocalDB Instance

I encountered a bit of a weird one today, which took some creative thinking to sort out, involving restoring a database into a SQL Server 2012 LocalDB. I am still not entirely sure what the root cause of the problem really is, but I'm sharing my solution just in case it proves useful to anybody else.

Match a user's username to their SID

If you've ever poked around in the Windows Registry on a multi-user machine you may have noticed that user settings are stored against an SID such as  S-1-5-21-2827067247-3228746870-1612205067-500.

Often it's useful to be able to match an SID up to a user name and here's how:

1) Open a command prompt.
2) Type: wmic useraccount get name,sid
3) Press enter

You'll then see a list such as the following, giving you the user name and the associated SID:


Name            SID
Administrator   S-1-5-21-2827067247-3228746870-1612205067-500
Guest           S-1-5-21-2827067247-3228746870-1612205067-501
HomeGroupUser$  S-1-5-21-2827067247-3228746870-1612205067-1002
Martin          S-1-5-21-2827067247-3228746870-1612205067-1000

Simples!

Pulp-O-Mizer!

Here's a fun pulp magazine cover image creator - the Pulp-o-Mizer!

http://thrilling-tales.webomator.com/derange-o-lab/pulp-o-mizer/pulp-o-mizer.html

And here's something I knocked up...

Windows 8 is a terrible tablet OS

Regular readers of Pieces o' Eight may remember my critique of Windows 8 as a desktop operating system last year. I still stand by those criticisms, however even at the time I had thought that the OS might fare better in a tablet environment.

It turns out I was utterly, staggeringly, badly wrong.

Logitech Unifying Receiver Lag - Solved!

I'm a big fan of Logitech's Unifying Receiver technology - I have the Performance MX mouse and the K800 Illuminated keyboard, both of which are excellent. One problem, however, seemed to affect the mouse particularly: Intermittent lag. Every so often the mouse would stop responding, do something weird or behave in a temperamental and highly frustrating manner. Happily I have managed to find a solution to this and resolved all of my lag problems.

Activating Windows 8 Upgrade After a Clean Install

If you bought an upgrade edition of Windows 8 Pro you might, like most sensible people, prefer to do a clean install rather than doing the upgrade. Sounds straight forwards, right? Wrong!

Although the installation appears to work ok, when you try to activate your copy of Windows 8 it will flat-out refuse to acknowledge your legitimate Windows product key. I have no idea why Microsoft have put this block in, other than to cause headaches for legitimate customers.

Happily, there is a work around - posted by someone going by the handle BinaryInk on the Windows forum  and re-posted here for posterity:

1. Run the registry editor (regedit) 

2. Find the following key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Setup\OOBE 

3. Change the value for 'MediaBootInstall' from 1 to 0 

4. Open an elevated command prompt (run as admin) 

5. Run the following command: slmgr -rearm 

6. Reboot

If you already entered your key, check the activation: for me it was already activated and I needed to do nothing more. If not, type in activate windows and type in the key; it should work. Also, do yourself a favor and export this key from regedit and save it somewhere if you ever are required to do another clean install. I know I did.

Darth Monolith

Introducing an exciting new range of action figures!

Click to embiggen