Is there a way to insert into SQL Server's system tables. Specifically, I want to mass insert the "description" for certain columns. For example, create_date, will have the same description for all of the tables in the database.

I tried to do the following:

insert into sys.extended_properties(class, class_desc, major_id, minor_id, name, value)
values(1, 'OBJECT_OR_COLUMN', 1973582069,3, 'MS_Description', 'Code used by the
State for reporting purposes');

For which I got the following error:

Msg 259, Level 16, State 1, Line 1
Ad hoc updates to system catalogs are not allowed.

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In SQL Server 2005, you cannot enable updates to the systems catalog because they are no longer tables. In order to accomplish what you are doing, you will need to use the sp_addextendedproperty procedure.

This was first published in October 2007

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