Rename SQL 2005 Database - Error: The database could not be exclusively locked to perform the operation.
During database restore, I tried to rename existing database in SQL Server 2005 by simply trying following command: ALTER DATABASE mydatabase MODIFY NAME = mydatabase_OLD But it didn't work and gave following error: "The database could not be exclusively locked to perform the operation." In order to fix, I had to set it to single user for a while, change the name and then set it back to multi-user. I had to execute following commands to make it work: ALTER DATABASE mydatabase SET SINGLE_USER WITH ROLLBACK IMMEDIATE GO ALTER DATABASE mydatabase MODIFY NAME = mydatabase_OLD GO ALTER DATABASE mydatabase_OLD SET MULTI_USER GO