The MS DTC Transactions Window

Use the MS DTC Transactions window to:

• Monitor the status of a transaction
• Manually resolve a transaction

The MS DTC Transactions window lists the current transactions in which a local MS DTC participates. Because the MS DTC can support thousands of concurrent transactions, the MS DTC Transactions window lists only:

• Transactions whose status is in doubt.
• Transactions that have remained in the same state for the period of time specified in the MS DTC Configuration dialog box (see The MS DTC Configuration Dialog Box).

Transactions that may need to be manually resolved fall into two categories:

• In-doubt transactions (usually the result of a failed connection between participating servers).
• Transactions that have been committed but not acknowledged by a SQL Server, usually because of a SQL Server failure that prevents the SQL Server from starting or causes a SQL Server to lose its log.

Database locks are maintained on one or more participating servers as long as a transaction remains unresolved (neither committed nor aborted). It is occasionally necessary to manually resolve a transaction to release the locks and make database resources available to other network users.