Packaging a SQL2005 application

[Ryan Langton]

I've created quite a few .Net apps we use locally and I generally just
publish them as ClickOnce applications to a network drive. Now I'm being
asked to make my app portable to other networks/companies. So I want to
create a setup program on CD/DVD. The hurdle here is that my apps are often
database driven and use SQL2005 as the backend. I'm not sure how to go
about doing this and just looking for a point in the right direction. I'm
currently using Visual Studio 2008 (Visual Basic), SQL 2005, and most of the
apps were created with .Net2.0.

Thanks,
Ryan

 

[Ryan Langton]

We're using SQL 2005, not express. That could be one of the issues that
other companies may not have SQL 2005 or a dedicated database server. Would
SQL Express be a viable solution for networked applications with say 5-10 or
possibly more users? I've created a SQL query to create the database and
tables, is there any way to package this query in the Install setup?

Thanks,
Ryan

 

[Aaron Smith]

We're using SQL 2005, not express. That could be one of the issues that
other companies may not have SQL 2005 or a dedicated database server.
Would SQL Express be a viable solution for networked applications with say
5-10 or possibly more users? I've created a SQL query to create the
database and tables, is there any way to package this query in the Install
setup?

Thanks,
Ryan

Ryan,

There is a way to put the query in a regular Setup and Deployment package.
It all depends on how you want to do it.

The way I did it is outlined (a little too simply) in this post:
http://thecodemonk.com/2007/10/25/windows-installer-sql-server-installation-issues-and-a-solution/

What you will want to do, is skip the SQL Express stuff I mentioned and just
create a Installer Class that you can call from a setup and deployment
project. You will need to prompt the user for the server, username, and
password and then use that information to execute your scripts.

I am 100% sure there are more elegant ways to do this. We were on a limited
budget in order to get this application out the door. Now that it is, we
will probably explore "pay for" options to do this in our next product.

Aaron