Automatically restart SQL Server 2008 Is there a "best" way to automatically restart SQL Server on a regular basis? I read that I could create a batch file to net start, net stop the agent and service in a batch file and schedule that, but I was curious if there was a better way of doing this.

Please nevermind how this is indicative of a larger problem of operation, I've been arguing this for a month and we've ended up here.

Thanks :).
I won't go into detail about why it's not a great idea, since you're already aware of all that. For anybody else stumbling across this answer: Try not to do this if possible!

For the occasions when I need to schedule an after-hours restart (patching, configuration changes, etc), I normally just run this in a batch file scheduled via Windows Task Scheduler:

net stop SQLSERVERAGENT
net stop MSSQLSERVER
net start MSSQLSERVER
net start SQLSERVERAGENT


Note that service names may vary if you aren't restarting the default instance. Also, the user account that the scheduled task runs under will need to have permission to restart the service.

I don't see any reason why this wouldn't work with a recurring schedule, as opposed to the one-time runs that I do.