Support SQL Server 2005 and 2008

Question

i want to know how it is possible to use the Entity Framework against the SQL Server 2008 and 2005?

I develop a application against the SQL Server 2008 and want that it can run under 2005 and 2008. I know that it is possible to change the ProviderManifestToken from 2008 to 2005 in the edmx Schema File in a Texteditor. But after i update my Model from the Database it changes the ProviderManifestToken back to 2008.

How can i told Visiual Studio to use the the 2005 Schema when i update my model from Database?

Thanks for any Help!

Nico

Answer 1

Read my blog post on EF and ProviderManifestToken.

Using the MSBuild.Community Tasks, I added a BeforeBuild Target that uses the XmlUpdate task to always change the ProviderManifestToken to 2005, in case someone changed it by updating the data model.

Here is the BeforeBuild Target:

<Target Name="BeforeBuild"> <XmlUpdate Prefix="ssdl"
            Namespace="http://schemas.microsoft.com/ado/2009/02/edm/ssdl"
            XPath="//ssdl:Schema/@ProviderManifestToken"
            XmlFileName="Model.edmx"
            Value="2005"/>