A few years ago I had used a 3rd party product to read a full backup file and open it in SSMS just as if it was online. The .bak could be queried like any online database. I need to do that again, but can't remember the company that offered the product. Does anyone know of a tool that will do this?
The database backup is from a huge database that will take hours to restore, so I didn't want to do that unless absolutely necessary.
After some more searching and a helpful link or two, I finally found that what I was looking for is Red Gate's SQL Virtual Restore. Problem is, it apparently isn't around anymore. I found an informational link about it in Red Gate's site here. Great write up by Brant Fritchey on it from June 2011 here
One link I found had a comment that similar functionality is in SQL Compare Pro. If it is, the advertising page for that product, doesn't mention that feature.
