I'm sorry to be asking a question that's already been answered (I believe) by this post (I am unable to add hyperlinks (I need to find out how to verify my account): http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/forums/en-us/sqlreplication/thread/41A6A539-A2F2-40AB-91C1-0F48FADE7D8C but the stakes are high for me and I really want to be sure ( a full snapshot take 20 hours):
If I want to rename an empty table that is an article in an existing publication with a subscriber, can I un-check the article from the publication (using the GUI in SSMS), start the snapshot agent so that it replicates that one change and be all right? I would then create an empty table with the same structure and add it to the publication and run the snapshot agent. Then I would say "drop table oldtablename" to take it out of the database.
This will be in production. I tried this in my small test replication and the whole snapshot was generated. Do you definitely have to drop and recreate a subscription if you drop an article from an existing publication with at least one subscriber? I have a coworker who is "sure" he never had to do this before. But from what I'm reading dropping is more serious than adding.
Update: my coworker says he just drops the article but doesn't run the snapshot. That's his method. He then drops the table from the database. So he says he knows it's still in the subscriber. Does this seem ok to you? He's been taking care of replication for a few months since the last DBA came and I arrived.
Thanks.
