Alter Column Question

Hello,
I have a table with 10million rows where I need to change the datatype on a
column from int to bigint. I'm assuming this will take a long time to
complete by just going in to Management Studio changing the datatype and
saving.
Any tips on speeding up the process?
Thanks in advance.
Any help appreciated!"Mark" <Mark@.discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:B6BE9290-1C47-4F43-8E87-BE399792BE21@.microsoft.com...
> Hello,
> I have a table with 10million rows where I need to change the datatype on
> a
> column from int to bigint. I'm assuming this will take a long time to
> complete by just going in to Management Studio changing the datatype and
> saving.
> Any tips on speeding up the process?
> Thanks in advance.
> Any help appreciated!
Do not use the Management Studio UI to do such things. Create an ALTER
script, test it in a test environment then run it on your target system. The
Management Studio UI is not the best way because it does some things behind
the scenes that may not be obvious unless you review the commands before you
execute them.
--
David Portas