We’re building an application for a client with the assumption that they’d be upgrading to a minimum of SQL Server 2005 from SQL Server 2000. We’re finished our application, built on 2005, and are ready to integrate. Turns out that they’re not going to upgrade their DB server.
So, now we’re stuck with trying to sort out what will break.
We don’t have access to SQL Server 2000, so we can only change the compatibility of the database to 80.
Aside from complete testing and reviewing every stored procedure (and I’ve read that changing the compatibility mode is not foolproof – so testing wouldn’t be bombproof), is there any other way to determine what will break? Any tools out there? Scripts?
Edit
I’d prefer not to try restoring this onto their production DB server to see what errors are spit out, so that’s not a good option.
Suggest you look in Books online for the page that spells out the differences between the two and look for those things. YOu can look over the list and then search for some new keywords in the table where the sp text is stored. That will give you a beginning list.
@rwmnau noted some good ones, I’ll add two more
SQL Server 2000 does not have varchar(max) or nvarchar (max), use text instead.
SQl Server 2000 also does not have SSIS – if you are creating SSIS packages to import data or move data to a data warehouse or export data, all of those need to be redone in DTS.
Also it looks to me like you can still download the free edition of SQL Server 2000:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=413744d1-a0bc-479f-bafa-e4b278eb9147&displaylang=en
You might want to do that and test on that.