The process of comparing SQL Server 2005 and 2008 databases may seem slow, especially compared to previous SQL Compare.

SQL Compare 7.1 reintroduced the ability to decrypt encrypted objects on SQL Server 2005 and 2008 databases. If the database contains a large number of objects that reside in SQL Server's SYSCOMMENTS table, such as stored procedures and user-defined functions, SQL Compare has to read through the code for all of these objects whether they are encrypted or not. The performance will improve after turning off the "Decrypt encrypted objects on 2005 and 2008 databases" option in the project options tab.