title: Default row order in SELECT query - SQL Server 2008 vs SQL 2012
body: <p>Our team recently upgraded our databases from SQL Server 2008 to SQL Server 2012. One breaking change we noticed was in the default order of rows returned by the SELECT statement, i.e. when an explicit ORDER BY clause is not specified.</p>
  
  <p>As per MSDN, <a href="http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-IN/library/ms188385(v=sql.110).aspx">SQL Server 2012</a> does not gaurantee the order of the rows returned unless an ORDER BY clause is specified.</p>
  
  <p>We have 2500+ stored procedures across 5 databases that have SELECT statements without an ORDER BY clause and it will be a sizeable effort to add the ORDER BY clause manually to match the behavior in SQL Server 2008. Is there a setting or faster way of doing this?</p>
  
  <p>The other option, which hasn't been explored, is to downgrade to SQL Server 2008. How difficult would this be?</p>