How to use Visual Studio's built-in SQL server?

Question

For some reason I'm not able to install a separate SQL Server instance on my pc, but I do have Visual Studio 2010 installed. I want to use the built-in SQL server bundled with VS2010, but I'm not sure how to do that. Is it possible to create a database and tables to use in my ASP.Net apps with the built-in SQL server rather than installing a separate one?

Answer 1

Visual Studio 2010 does not have a built-in SQL server. However, a free version of Microsoft SQL Server called 'SQL Server Express' comes with it, it's an option when installing Visual Studio.

Because this version is free for anyone to download, it has some limitations, like for example: only one CPU can be used by the express version, the maximum size of a database is 4 GB (10GB in 2008 R2), it can only use up to 1GB of RAM and it doesn't have the 'SQL Server Agent' service.

Using SQL Server Express is very similar to using a full version of SQL Server. You just have to specify the data source (the SQL server's name) and authentication details in a connection string and you're good to go. More information about how to use this is available on MSDN.

Another option is 'SQL Server Compact', which is meant mostly for web databases (for use with ASP.Net). You can install it with Microsoft's 'Web Platform Installer'. You can find more information about SQL Server Compact on MSDN.