How to run sp_browsereplcmds on a Distribution db backup
From time to time we need to restore a customer’s Distribution database to a secondary server or to a lab server for testing. When you restore a distribution database it will not be configured to execute Replication commands such as sp_browsereplcmds. However, there is a simple solution. You can execute the command below to configure the restored distribution database as a “Replication Distribution” database.
sp_adddistributiondb [distribution_A]
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms189755.aspx
Once configured, the restored database shows up in the Distributor properties
You can now run commands such as sp_browsereplcmds to explore data in the Distribution database
sp_browsereplcmds'0x0002D17D00021373001100000000','0x0002D17D00021373001100000000'
I've also simply casted the command column as nvarchar and returned the results in text. Its not as clean as what Chris proposes above, but it is a bit faster:
select top 10 CAST(command as varchar(500))as text from distribution.dbo.msrepl_commands