SQL Server maintains a set of tables that store
information about all the objects, data types, constraints, configuration
options, and resources available to SQL Server. In SQL Server 2008, these
tables are called the system base tables.
Some of the system base tables exist only in
the master database and contain system-wide information, and
others exist in every database (including master) and contain information
about the objects and resources belonging to that particular database.
Beginning with SQL Server 2005, the system base tables are not always visible
by default, in master or any other database. You won’t see them when
you expand the tables node in the Object Explorer in SQL Server
Management Studio, and unless you are a system administrator, you won’t see
them when you execute the sp_help system procedure.
If you log in as a system
administrator and select from the catalog view called sys.objects, you can see the names of all the system tables.
For example, the
following query returns 58 rows of output on my SQL Server 2008 instance:
USE master; SELECT name FROM sys.objects
WHERE type_desc = 'SYSTEM_TABLE';
