Can you show the query? Just because it runs doesn't mean it's correct. :-) For example this is not legal, but it works:
SELECT CONVERT(SMALLDATETIME, modify_date) AS modify_date
FROM sys.objects AS o
ORDER BY o.modify_date;
Technically, it should be as follows, since o.modify_date is not in the SELECT list:
SELECT CONVERT(SMALLDATETIME, modify_date) AS modify_date
FROM sys.objects AS o
ORDER BY modify_date;
In this Connect bug, it was stated that this rule would be removed from the Upgrade Advisor. I suspect that one of the following (or both) happened:
- They forgot to remove the rule as they said they would
- They had other complications which prevented the above syntax from being blocked by the parser
That all said, there are some breaking changes the upgrade advisor will never catch. For example, this will work on 2005, 2008 and 2008 R2:
CREATE TABLE #foo(id INT);
IF OBJECT_ID('tempdb..#foo') > 0
BEGIN
DROP TABLE #foo;
END
GO
CREATE TABLE #foo(id INT);
This will break in SQL Server 2012, however, since #temp tables now get a negative object_id. The proper way to test is:
IF OBJECT_ID('tempdb..#foo') IS NOT NULL
I go over a few other issues in this blog post. A couple of other breaking changes:
If you use any of the memory-related DMVs there has been a major overhaul to some of the columns:
Again, most of these are not caught by the upgrade advisor, so running that tool and not doing any thorough testing could really put you in a bad spot.
And I agree with Eric's answer - you should try to track deprecated events. For completeness, here are three approaches:
Best Answer
The Compatibility Level never changes due to a Service Pack upgrade. So SP4 has the same Compatibility Level as SP2, same features and limitations etc, it's just presumably better/faster/more stable/more secure.
SQL2005 databases have Level 90 (unless they were restored from even older versions without updating the Level) and can be restored on SQL 2005 through 2012.
For the complete table of SQL Server versions vs supported Compatibility Levels, see: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sql/t-sql/statements/alter-database-transact-sql-compatibility-level