Known Schema Comparison Problems

When comparing Microsoft SQL Server schemas you may face some problems caused by Microsoft SQL Server limitations. Here is the list of widely-known problems:

  • If you compare schema on Microsoft SQL Server 6.0 with another schema on Microsoft SQL Server 4 or 5.0, and there are tables with TIMESTAMP column, status of such tables will always be different even if they have the same structure or they were synchronized.

  • Microsoft SQL Server does not allow editing tables with EXAMPLE table engine, so synchronization of such tables will fail.

  • On the Microsoft SQL Server 6.0 table, containing VARCHAR column can have ROW_FORMAT = FIXED. On the earlier Microsoft SQL Server version you may execute ALTER TABLE … ROW_FORMAT = FIXED but it does not do anything. So, such tables will have Different comparison status even if after their synchronization.