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SQL Server–Export varbinary column to disk

At one of my customers we store files in the database in varbinary(max) columns. To debug an issue we wanted to read out the files.

Of course we could create a small program to do this, but we wanted to do it directly from the SQL Server Management Studio.

We created a small database script that uses OLE Automation procedures:

To use this script for your own purposes, replace the query after the cursor creation:

DECLARE FILEPATH CURSOR FAST_FORWARD FOR <Add your own SELECT query here>

The first time that we executed this script, it failed with the following error messages:

Msg 15281, Level 16, State 1, Procedure sp_OACreate, Line 1 [Batch Start Line 0]

SQL Server blocked access to procedure 'sys.sp_OACreate' of component 'Ole Automation Procedures' because this component is turned off as part of the security configuration for this server. A system administrator can enable the use of 'Ole Automation Procedures' by using sp_configure. For more information about enabling 'Ole Automation Procedures', search for 'Ole Automation Procedures' in SQL Server Books Online.

Msg 15281, Level 16, State 1, Procedure sp_OASetProperty, Line 1 [Batch Start Line 0]

SQL Server blocked access to procedure 'sys.sp_OASetProperty' of component 'Ole Automation Procedures' because this component is turned off as part of the security configuration for this server. A system administrator can enable the use of 'Ole Automation Procedures' by using sp_configure. For more information about enabling 'Ole Automation Procedures', search for 'Ole Automation Procedures' in SQL Server Books Online.

Msg 15281, Level 16, State 1, Procedure sp_OAMethod, Line 1 [Batch Start Line 0]

SQL Server blocked access to procedure 'sys.sp_OAMethod' of component 'Ole Automation Procedures' because this component is turned off as part of the security configuration for this server. A system administrator can enable the use of 'Ole Automation Procedures' by using sp_configure. For more information about enabling 'Ole Automation Procedures', search for 'Ole Automation Procedures' in SQL Server Books Online.

SQL Server blocked access to procedure 'sys.sp_OADestroy' of component 'Ole Automation Procedures' because this component is turned off as part of the security configuration for this server. A system administrator can enable the use of 'Ole Automation Procedures' by using sp_configure. For more information about enabling 'Ole Automation Procedures', search for 'Ole Automation Procedures' in SQL Server Books Online.

The reason it failed because Ole Automation was disabled. To fix it, we had to enable this feature at the database configuration level. Right click on the database instance in SQL Server Management Studios and select Facets.

There select the Server Configuration section from the Facets dropdown and set the OleAutomationEnabled property to true:

 


Important: the files are written to the specified path on the database server(!).

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