Hi All,

I'm just starting to develop an application, which I thought would use SQL
Express in the way I'd usually use Access. My app needs a way to store some
data and be able to run SQL command against it (it's not necessary, but it'd
be nice). With Access, I'd just throw in a connection string pointing at an
MDB in my application directory, and I wouldn't require the user to have
anything.

I was under the impression that with connection strings pointing to MDFs,
that some SQL stuff was built into .net2, and I could use this in the same
way, but after a quick search of the web, it seems this isn't possible, and
SQL Express is just a development tool, and my users would need SQL Server
to run my application. That's completely out of the question, since I'm just
developing a small freeware application.

Is there any alternative to this? I don't want to use Access, but I don't
want to require SQL licences for a tiny little application with a 500kb
database!

Short of Access (or embedded MySQL or something!) is there any way to use
SQL??

Thanks,

Danny Tuppeny

"Danny Tuppeny" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:43385558$0$15063$(E-Mail Removed)...
> Hi All,
>
> I'm just starting to develop an application, which I thought would use SQL
> Express in the way I'd usually use Access. My app needs a way to store
> some data and be able to run SQL command against it (it's not necessary,
> but it'd be nice). With Access, I'd just throw in a connection string
> pointing at an MDB in my application directory, and I wouldn't require the
> user to have anything.
>
> I was under the impression that with connection strings pointing to MDFs,
> that some SQL stuff was built into .net2, and I could use this in the same
> way, but after a quick search of the web, it seems this isn't possible,
> and SQL Express is just a development tool, and my users would need SQL
> Server to run my application. That's completely out of the question, since
> I'm just developing a small freeware application.
>
> Is there any alternative to this? I don't want to use Access, but I don't
> want to require SQL licences for a tiny little application with a 500kb
> database!
>
> Short of Access (or embedded MySQL or something!) is there any way to use
> SQL??

You can redistribute SQL with your application. With SQL 2000, the
redistributable version is called MSDE. With SQL 2005, I *think* that the
redistributable version is SQL Express. Of course, SQL 2005 is still in
beta so you can't redistribute anything until it's released (Nov 7th?).

"John Vottero" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:et%(E-Mail Removed)...

Hi John,

> You can redistribute SQL with your application. With SQL 2000, the
> redistributable version is called MSDE. With SQL 2005, I *think* that the
> redistributable version is SQL Express. Of course, SQL 2005 is still in
> beta so you can't redistribute anything until it's released (Nov 7th?).

I don't really want to distribute anything, I want it to run out of the box
(like connecting to an Access db - you don't require Access installed). I
want my app to be installed with ClickOnce to make things easy, and I think
SQL Express will just make it a nightmare!

I'm just playing around with db4o now, which might save me some time on
writing SQL too, and it seems pretty portable, as long as my
ClickOnce-installed app is allowed write access somewhere on the disk
without having to bug the user for permissions!

Danny

"John Vottero" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:et%(E-Mail Removed)...

Hi John,

> You can redistribute SQL with your application. With SQL 2000, the
> redistributable version is called MSDE. With SQL 2005, I *think* that the
> redistributable version is SQL Express. Of course, SQL 2005 is still in
> beta so you can't redistribute anything until it's released (Nov 7th?).

I don't really want to distribute anything, I want it to run out of the box
(like connecting to an Access db - you don't require Access installed). I
want my app to be installed with ClickOnce to make things easy, and I think
SQL Express will just make it a nightmare!

I'm just playing around with db4o now, which might save me some time on
writing SQL too, and it seems pretty portable, as long as my
ClickOnce-installed app is allowed write access somewhere on the disk
without having to bug the user for permissions!

Danny