syscolumns table permission issue

Question

Hello everyone,

I am using SQL Server 2008 Enterprise on Windows Server 2008 Enterprise. In SQL Server Management Studio, I can execute the statement "select * from syscolumns" successfully, but I can not find the syscolumns table from SQL Server Management Studio, any ideas what is wrong or how to find this table?

(I mean syscolumns table, not sys.columns view.)

BTW: I have some legacy code which is working on SQL Server 2000 on account foo (using SQL Server authentication mode, other than Windows authentication mode), and on SQL Server 2000 there is a table called syscolumns which my legacy code is using, and I want to find the syscolumns table to manipulate permission to grant account foo only read permission on syscolumns table for security reasons.

thanks in advance, George

Answer 1

I think you want sys.syscolumns which is a view in 2008. used for backwards compatibility, it should be under Views - System Views in SSMS

To add SELECT permission

GRANT SELECT ON sys.syscolumns TO [domain\user]

The below link warns against using this as it will not be supported in later versions.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms186816.aspx