Packaging a SQL2005 application

  • Thread starter Thread starter Ryan Langton
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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
 
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 Langton said:
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
Click to expand...

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
 
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