MS SQL Server - Update all rows

In this article, we would like to show you how to UPDATE all rows in MS SQL Server.

Quick solution:

UPDATE [table_name]
SET [column_name]= value;

Note:

To update all rows in MS SQL Server you need to omit the WHERE clause.

Practical example

To show how to update all rows, we will use the following users table:

Note:

At the end of this article you can find database preparation SQL queries.

Example

In this example, we will update department_id value for every user.

Query:

UPDATE [users] SET [department_id]= 10;

Result:

Database preparation

create_tables.sql file:

CREATE TABLE [users] (
	[id] INT IDENTITY(1,1),
	[name] VARCHAR(50) NOT NULL,
	[surname] VARCHAR(50) NOT NULL,
	[department_id] INT,
    [salary] DECIMAL(15,2) NOT NULL,
	PRIMARY KEY ([id])
);

insert_data.sql file:

INSERT INTO [users]
	( [name], [surname], [department_id], [salary])
VALUES
	('John', 'Stewart', 1, '3512.00'),
	('Chris', 'Brown', 2, '1344.00'),
	('Kate', 'Lewis', 3, '6574.00'),
	('Ailisa', 'Gomez', 1, '6500.00'),
	('Gwendolyn', 'James', 2, '4200.00'),
	('Simon', 'Collins', 4, '3320.00'),
	('Taylor', 'Martin', 2, '1500.00'),
	('Andrew', 'Thompson', 1, '2100.00');