The February CTP of SQL2008, aka CTP6 is now available for download here:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=749bd760-f404-4d45-9ac0-d7f1b3ed1053&displaylang=en&tm
Also now available, although not something you can download freely, is cumulative update 6 of SQL 2005 SP2:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/946608/en-us
Several of those bugs there are ones I found (chest swells up with pride)… Meanwhile, in the SQL Server community, the calls for Microsoft to reverse their decision to not release a SP3 are getting louder. As I’ve said before, Analysis Services SP2 contained way too many bugs in my opinion and given that many shops either don’t know about CU releases, can’t get hold of them or won’t install anything other than an official service pack the fact that these bugs have since been fixed is irrelevant until the fixes get rolled up into an official service pack. It just sends a message to the customer that Microsoft is more concerned with shipping a profitable new release than making the product that everyone’s actually using at the moment (and most people will be using for a long time to come) more reliable.
Word.