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Microsoft on Friday shipped a new service pack for SQL Server 2000, an upgrade that brings some 64-bit computing benefits to customers.
Released as a free download, SQL Server 2000 SP4 (Service Pack 4) is a cumulative service pack that includes all fixes in SP1, SP2 and SP3a.
A company spokeswoman said SP4 is the first service pack to service the 64-bit edition of SQL Server. It clears the way for SQL Server 2000 users running Windows Server 2003 x64 Edition to run 32-bit SQL Server applications on 64-bit architectures in Windows on Windows emulation (WOW64).
A company spokeswoman told Ziff Davis Internet News that the service pack is mostly a bug fix upgrade that addresses security, performance and serviceability.
In addition to providing fixes for a long list of bugs, she said SQL Server 2000 SP4 includes performance improvements on 64-bit 32-way and above systems.
Microsoft has refreshed the Visual Database Tools to address security and has introduced new registry entries in the service pack to provide control over security, metadata and memory management, the spokeswoman said.
It also features serviceability enhancements that let users uninstall hotfixes applied to SP4 and later versions of SQL Server 2000 running on Windows XP and Windows Server 2003.
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