I think what Mr. Goulet was trying to say is that 'without [an spfile] you can't modify system parameters [...] on the fly." -----Original Message----- From: oracle-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:oracle-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Mercadante, Thomas F What do you mean you can't modify system params? I can modify any system param on the fly. I just have to also to update the init.ora file. Again, I'm not losing any functionality. And the number of times I modify the init.ora params I can count on one hand every three months. I also added a database shutdown trigger to issue an "alter database backup controlfile to trace" in all my databases. -----Original Message----- From: Goulet, Dick [mailto:DGoulet@xxxxxxxx] Well, I'll disagree with Rachel. True having an INIT file is not = currently broke, but without it you can't modify system parameters, like = shared_pool_size on the fly. So yes I have migrated to them, of course = I'va also added "create pfile=3D<name> from spfile" to my shutdown = script, along with "alter database backup controlfile to trace". Save that there bacon, it's mine!! -- //www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-l