Can't Add a Column

[monkeybarfan]

I am running SQL Server 2000. I have a large table of several million records. All I want to do is to add a new column, so I go to table design, insert a new column, put in the column name and change the type to int.

Then when I hit save it just hangs. Egg timer. I have left it for 2 hours. I have made several attempts to do this and it always just hangs.

Any ideas?

 

[Jamfool]

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa275462.aspx

Try instead and do it as a query. Its likely just taking a long time.

e.g

ALTER TABLE doc_exc ADD column_b VARCHAR(20) NULL

 

[yelworcm]

What the GUI is doing is creating a brand new table, and transferring the data over to it. Yes, it sounds dumb, but that is what it is doing. Go with Jamfool's suggestion. It will be a LOT faster.

 

[monkeybarfan]

Done it now, thanks

I created a new table with the structure I wanted including the new fields, then did a SELECT INTO and renamed the new table with the old name