Consider the following scenario. You have two instances of Microsoft SQL Server 2005 that are named Instance1 and Instance2. In Instance1, you have a table that has the following characteristics:

• The table has a column of the VARCHAR data type.
• The table has no clustered index.
• The column of the VARCHAR data type is not indexed.
• The table has many rows. For example, the table has 100,000 or more rows.

In Instance2, you perform the following operations:

• You create a linked server to Instance1.
• You run an UPDATE statement against the linked server to update the column of the VARCHAR data type in the table in Instance1.

In this scenario, the update operation may be performed on incorrect rows.

When you update a remote table, SQL Server 2005 creates an API server cursor on the remote table. Then, SQL Server 2005 executes the sp_cursorfetch stored procedure to fetch rows from the cursor. However, the sp_cursorfetch stored procedure fetches incorrect rows. Therefore, the update operation is performed on incorrect rows.

The fix for this issue was first released in Cumulative Update 7. For more information about how to obtain this cumulative update package for SQL Server 2005 Service Pack 2, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:Note Because the builds are cumulative, each new fix release contains all the hotfixes and all the security fixes that were included with the previous SQL Server 2005 fix release. Microsoft recommends that you consider applying the most recent fix release that contains this hotfix. For more information, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:Microsoft SQL Server 2005 hotfixes are created for specific SQL Server service packs. You must apply a SQL Server 2005 Service Pack 2 hotfix to an installation of SQL Server 2005 Service Pack 2. By default, any hotfix that is provided in a SQL Server service pack is included in the next SQL Server service pack.

Microsoft has confirmed that this is a problem in the Microsoft products that are listed in the "Applies to" section.

For more information about what files are changed, and for information about any prerequisites to apply the cumulative update package that contains the hotfix that is described in this Microsoft Knowledge Base article, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

Important information for SQL Server 2005 Analysis Services

A known issue exists in Cumulative Update 7 for SQL Server 2005 Analysis Services. Consider the following scenario. You install Cumulative Update 7 for SQL Server 2005 SP2. In SQL Server Profiler, you start a trace or stop a trace. Then, you run a query. The execution time of the query exceeds the value of the ForceCommitTimeout server setting. In this scenario, all the queries that are running on the server are canceled. To work around this issue, do not run MDX queries before you start a trace or stop a trace.

For more information about the list of builds that are available after SQL Server Service Pack 2, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: For more information about the Incremental Servicing Model for SQL Server, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:For more information about how to obtain SQL Server 2005 Service Pack 2, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: For more information about the new features and the improvements in SQL Server 2005 Service Pack 2, visit the following Microsoft Web site: For more information about the naming schema for SQL Server updates, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:For more information about software update terminology, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: