Where is SQL Server Agent and do I need it? [closed]

Question

I want to upgrade a 2005 db to 2008, using 2008 Sql Server Mgt Studio to do so, and getting the warning at the end. Questions:

1. I no longer have the disk for SQL Server 2008; do I need that to install or start Agent? If I can't install Agent, will the upgrade to 2008 work?
2. If Agent is likely installed but not started, where is it? I saw another SO post saying it was a Login option but I don't see it anywhere.

As an aside, my only real motivation to bother is that the datetime type has become a problem. What did people do when they needed a date earlier than the 18th century before date and datetime2 came along??

Warning from the: Copy Database Wizard

SQL Server Agent does not appear to be running on the destination server. If SQL Server Agent is not running on the destination server, Copy Database Wizard will not function properly. Do you want to continue?

Answer 1

try :

start-> run->services.msc

search for the sql server agent and see if it has started

Answer 2

What did people do when they needed a date earlier than the 18th century before date and datetime2 came along??

That is an SQL Server limitation (and perhaps other DBMS). I would say that since C# (.NET) can handle a date like "01/01/0001" you can always convert your date into a long, save it to the db as a BIGINT and recreate/regenerate it after retrieval. For example, to convert today's date to a long, you can do:

var dt = DateTime.Now.ToBinary();

That is a hack, of course :)

The following line will convert the long back into a date:

var dt1 = DateTime.FromBinary(dt);