ALTER TABLE SWITCH statement failed because table '%.*ls' has %d columns and table '%.*ls' has %d columns.

Error Message
Msg 4943, Level 16, State 1, Line 1
ALTER TABLE SWITCH statement failed because table '%.*ls' has %d columns and table '%.*ls' has %d columns.

Severity level
16.

Description
This error message appears, when you try to execute an ALTER TABLE SWITCH command for which source and target table do have a different number of columns.

Consequences
The T-SQL statement can be parsed, but causes the error at runtime.

Resolution
Error of the Severity Level 16 are generated by the user and are corrigible by the user. The statement can not be executed this way. Source and target table must a have an identical number of columns.

Versions
This error message was introduced with SQL Server 2005.

Example
USE Pubs
GO
CREATE PARTITION FUNCTION myPartFunction (int)
    AS RANGE LEFT FOR VALUES (1, 10, 100);
GO

CREATE PARTITION SCHEME myPartScheme
    AS PARTITION myPartFunction
   ALL TO ([PRIMARY]);
GO

CREATE TABLE myPartTable
(
 c1 int
)
ON myPartScheme (c1);

GO
CREATE TABLE myNonPartTable
(
 c1 int,
 c2 int
)
ON [PRIMARY];
GO
ALTER TABLE myPartTable SWITCH PARTITION 1 TO dbo.myNonPartTable ;
GO

DROP TABLE myNonPartTable, myPartTable;
DROP PARTITION SCHEME myPartScheme;
DROP PARTITION FUNCTION myPartFunction;

Remarks
In the above example we try to execute an ALTER TABLE SWITCH command. Because source and target have a different number of columns, the error is raised.