Question

I got

CONFIG statement cannot be used inside a user transaction

when running procedure 2 below. Any resolution? Thanks.

Procedure #1:

CREATE PROC [dbo].[nz_test1]
as
   EXEC sp_configure 'show advanced option', 1
   RECONFIGURE WITH OVERRIDE
   EXEC sp_configure 'xp_cmdshell', 1
   EXEC sp_configure 'ad hoc distributed queries', 1  
   RECONFIGURE WITH OVERRIDE

select 1

Procedure #2:

create proc [dbo].[test_nz_tb3]
as
    create table #t (a varchar(2))

    insert into #t
           exec nz_test1

Answer 1

Apparently (to me, anyway), if you are told that you can’t do what you are trying to do, you need to change your code to avoid doing what you aren’t allowed to. In particular, you likely need to move the configuration/reconfiguration code outside the procedure you are calling in the INSERT statement (the nz_test1 one), to another stored procedure, for instance. Run that code separately, probably before the insert (that may depend on what you are trying to achieve with that reconfiguration, which you aren’t revealing).

So, something like this, perhaps:

CREATE PROCEDURE dbo.my_config
AS
    EXEC sp_configure 'show advanced option', 1;
    RECONFIGURE WITH OVERRIDE;
    EXEC sp_configure 'xp_cmdshell', 1;
    EXEC sp_configure 'ad hoc distributed queries', 1;
    RECONFIGURE WITH OVERRIDE;
GO
CREATE PROCEDURE dbo.nz_test1
AS
    SELECT 1 AS Value;
GO
CREATE PROCEDURE dbo.test_nz_tb3
AS
    EXEC dbo.my_config;
    CREATE TABLE #t (a varchar(10));
    INSERT INTO #t
        EXEC dbo.nz_test1;

Make sure you do not call test_nz_tb3 within a transaction either. Otherwise you’ll need to call my_config outside test_nz_tb3, likely before the transaction where the latter is called.