SQL Server Express WebLog : Archive

What's New in SQL Express 2008 November CTP

sqlexpress — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 21:02:00 GMT

SQL Server 2008 Express is now available as part of the November CTP - You can download it from the following link: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=749bd760-f404-4d45-9ac0-d7f1b3ed1053&displaylang=en.

There is already a bunch of information out there about the new functionality available in SQL Server 2008, so I won't spend much time describing the features here. What I will do is document which of those new features will be available in the Express edition.

The following new features are available in SQL Express 2008:

New Datatypes

Date/Time data type improvements
Hierarchy ID
Filestream Data
Geographical Data

DB Engine Improvements
Large user-defined types
Predictable query performance

Programmability
ADO.NET Entity Framework
Language Integrated Query (LINQ)

Productivity
Declarative Management Framework
Streamlined Setup

For the November CTP we have only released the basic version of SQL Server 2008 Express. We'll be releasing SQL Server 2008 Express with Advanced Services and Management Studio Express in a future CTP. For now, if you want to use management studio to work with your SQL Express database, you should download SQL Developer edition, which is available from the same site listed above, and install the full version of Management Studio. This will work against SQL Express with no problems.

Before you even ask, yes, the download package is pretty big; hey, it's a CTP! The download size will be reduced as we approach the final release so don't get too worried at this point, it's an interim step.

Questions?

You can provide feedback (bugs and feature request) on the SQL Server 2008 November CTP through the SQL Connect site: https://connect.microsoft.com/SQLServer

You can post general SQL Server 2008 question in the appropriate SQL Server 2008 forum on MSDN: http://forums.microsoft.com/MSDN/default.aspx?ForumGroupID=428&SiteID=1

You can post SQL Express specific quesitons in the SQL Server 2008 Express forum on MSDN: http://forums.microsoft.com/MSDN/ShowForum.aspx?ForumID=1621&SiteID=1

Have fun!

-Mike

How to upgrade from SQL Express to SQL Express Advanced

sqlexpress — Fri, 21 Apr 2006 04:58:00 GMT

Update -- Update -- Update (6/1/2006)

As of 6/1/2006 we have posted a corrected Express Advanced installer that does not require you to follow these steps. If you're unsure if you have the update, download a fresh copy from the SQL Express download page at http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/express/sql/download.

Important Note: If you have already succesfully installed SQL Express Advanced, you do not need to reinstall it.

Original Post

Note: These steps are no longer necesary for Express Advanced downloaded after 6/1/2006.

In order to upgrade from SQL Server 2005 Express Edition (RTM or SP1) to SQL Server 2005 Express Edition with Advanced Services, you have to do the following steps first:

Delete the files from the Template Data directory prior to installing Express Advanced

You will be able to upgrade to Express Advanced if you remove the files from the Template Data directory prior to upgrading to Express Advanced:

1. Open Windows Explorer and navigate to C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL.#\MSSQL\Template Data.

MSSQL.# represents the Instance ID for SQL Express. If there are no other copies of SQL Server ( any Edition) on your computer, then this will be MSSQL.1, if there are multiple copies of SQL Server installed review the information below to determine which Instance ID you need to use.

2. Select all the files in the Template Data directory.

3. On the File menu, point at Send To and then click Compressed (zipped) folder. Move the Compressed folder to a safe location.

4. Once the Compressed folder has been created, delete the original files from the Template Data directory.

5. Install Express Advanced as you normally would install an upgrade.

Note: Once Express Advanced installation has completed successfully you can delete the compressed folder you created in step #3.

How to determine the Instance ID

1. Open SQL Server Configuration Manager. (Start | All Programs | Microsoft SQL Server 2005 | Configuration Tools)

2. Select the SQL Server 2005 Services node.

3. Select the SQL Server instance you are interested in. (For a default installation this will read “SQL Server (SQLEXPRESS)”.

4. On the Action menu, click properties.

5. Switch to the Advanced tab and find the Instance ID property.

This will give you the Instance ID to use in step #1.

Alternatively you can remove the copy of Express Edition prior to installing Express Advanced.

Uninstall Express Edition (RTM or SP1) before Installing Express Advanced

1. Navigate to Add / Remove Programs.

2. Select Microsoft SQL Server 2005 from the and click Remove.

3. From the list of available instances, pick the SQL Express installation you want to remove. (Note: A default installation of SQL Express would be listed as SQLEXPRESS: Database Engine.)

4. Click Next and then Click Finish.

5. Once removal is complete, you can install Express Advanced to the same Instance Name.

Note: You will not lose your databases during removal of SQL Express, they will be left behind in the Data directory under the InstanceID for the Instance of SQL Express you just removed. (Don't delete your database!) You will need to Attach the databases to the new installation of SQL Express Advanced once it's up and running. You can do this using either SQLCmd or Management Studio Express.

If you tried to do the upgrade without doing this and got the error "Login failed for user 'sa'" then read this blog entrie to correct the problem.

Got questions? Post them in the SQL Express Forum on MSDN.

- Mike

Announcing: SQL Express with Advanced Services Beta

sqlexpress — Fri, 03 Feb 2006 04:14:00 GMT

Are you using SQL Server 2005 Express Edition and want to contribute to helping us continue to improve it?

Now is your chance. We are about to start a beta program for the next update to SQL Express and are looking for beta testers who have experience working with MSDE or SQL Express and who are interested in testing out the next update for SQL Express. You can nominate yourself by filling out a questionnaire on Microsoft BetaPlace.

Accessing the questionnaire:

Navigate to the BetaPlace web site. (http://beta.microsoft.com)
Login in using your Passport account. (You will need to create one if you don’t have one already.)
If you are not registered, you will be taken directly to the Guest ID screen. If you are registered, you will need to click the link to get to the Guest ID screen.
Enter the case sensitive password: sql05express
Click on the link for the “SQL Server 2005” beta program.
Click on the link for the “SQL Server 2005 Express Advanced Service Beta” to get to the questionnaire.

Mike Wachal

SQL Express Program Management

SQL Express Beta 2 available now!

sqlexpress — Mon, 26 Jul 2004 21:26:00 GMT

As of this morning SQL Express Beta 2 is available for download from http://lab.msdn.microsoft.com/express/sql/. Before upgrading please follow all the steps listed on the download page or at http://blogs.msdn.com/sqlexpress/archive/2004/07/21/190738.aspx as upgrading from the Tech Preview can be complicated.

SQL Server 2005 Express Edition won't install on my Brazilian Portuguese OS

sqlexpress — Tue, 20 Jul 2004 22:23:00 GMT

The SQL Server Setup team has verified that this is a bug. We are currently investigating, but at this point we do not have a workaround.

Further updates will be provided via this weblog as they become available.

-Jeffrey Baker
SQL Server Setup Development

FAQ: Why do I get warnings about IIS and COM+ during the install of SQL Express, is something wrong?

sqlexpress — Thu, 08 Jul 2004 09:21:00 GMT

No nothing is wrong, the current builds SQL Server Express uses the same pre-requisite checks that the main SQL Server 2005 release does, except they are warnings instead of blocks. There is not problem in not having IIS for example.

These checks will be removed from SQL Express for Beta 3.

-Euan Garden

Product Unit Manager

SQL Server Tools

FAQ: SQL Server 2000 Reporting Services fails after installing SQL Server 2005

sqlexpress — Thu, 08 Jul 2004 02:10:00 GMT

After installing any component of SQL Server 2005 Beta 2 or Visual Studio 2005 Beta 1 on a computer with an existing installation of SQL Server 2000 Reporting Services, Reporting Services may fail with the following error:

The report server cannot decrypt the symmetric key used to access sensitive
or encrypted data in a report server database. You must either restore a backup key
or delete all encrypted content and then restart the service.
Check the documentation for more information. (rsReportServerDisabled).

To resolve this problem, you must use the rsactivate utility to reinitialize the report server. Follow these steps:

1/ Start the Report Server Windows service if it is not already running. For more information, see "Starting and Stopping the Report Server Service" in Books Online.

2/ Click Start, click Run, type cmd in the text box, and then click OK.

3/ At the command prompt, type rsactivate -r. For more information, see "rsactivate Utility" in SQL Server 2005 Books Online.

4/ Restart IIS.

-Jeffrey Baker
SQL Server Setup Development

FAQ: How do I write objects in Managed code, the beta 1 samples/docs on the web don't work with SQL Express?

sqlexpress — Mon, 05 Jul 2004 04:29:00 GMT

The syntax for much of SQLCLR was changed between B1 and the current builds to make it more consistent. Building SQLCLR objects in Visual Studio 2005 is really easy as we have new project types, but the Express SKUs of VS do not include this project type so the code has to be written by hand. The below is a sample from Ramachandran Venkatesh one of the PMs on the SQLCLR team in SQL Server.

-Euan Garden

Product Unit Manager

SQL Server Tools

***C# Sample***

Here is a soup-to-nuts sample to build a hello world function in C#, illustrating the basic steps of creating a source file, compiling it, registering the assembly, creating a function over it, and then invoking the function.

public class c
{
public static string HelloWorld() { return "hello world"; }
}
save to hello.cs,

csc /t:library hello.dll hello.cs

***The following code needs to be executed in a query editor***

create assembly hello from 'c:\hello.dll'
go

create function hello() returns nvarchar(129) as external name
[hello].[c].[HelloWorld]
go

select dbo.hello()
go

Ofcourse this is just the tip of the iceberg, in terms of the functionality, but you get an idea of the basic sequence.

FAQ: How do I start playing with data in SQL Express, there don't seem to be any sample databases

sqlexpress — Mon, 05 Jul 2004 04:15:00 GMT

SQL Express currently does not ship with any sample databases to help keep the size down, we'll be making these formally available on the web in the future but the folks over at ASP.Net have a nice tutorial that includes using the pubs database, so they have a page that shows you how to download and install pubs.

Its here.

-Euan Garden

Product Unit Manager

SQL Server Tools

Introducing SQL Server Express Manager

sqlexpress — Sat, 03 Jul 2004 06:46:00 GMT

For those of you who are interested in database management tools for SQL Express, I’d like to tell you about a new product that Microsoft will be releasing soon called SQL Server Express Manager (or XM for short). XM is a lightweight tool built on top of the latest version of the .NET Framework and the new SQL Server System Management Objects API. We received a lot of interest from MSDE customers for a better database management experience and we are hoping to provide that with the release of XM.

A little background on XM…
The inspiration for developing this tool came directly from customer feedback. By talking to MSDE users, we learned that in order to make SQL Server Express a successful product, we needed to provide an easy way for customers to manage their databases. For example of a feature that was implemented in direct response to a customer request is XM’s ability to connect to and managed both local and remote SQL Server instances.

Another significant result from the feedback that we received was that it reinforced the importance of designing XM with simplicity of use in mind. We want XM to be a tool that any database developer can get value out of so to that end, we have tried to optimize XM to be easy to install, easy to understand, and available to anyone. Some of the new usability features include step by step wizards to guide users through common tasks and a simplified tree view of the database objects in addition to standard functionality such as a T-SQL editor with syntax-highlighting. Like SQL Express, XM will also be freely downloadable and redistributable.

We expect to ship the first preview release of XM in time for Yukon Beta 3 but we are making every effort to provide this tool to customers earlier in the fall. Customers have also expressed an interest in more frequent product releases so we are planning to ship additional preview releases with updates to XM every 6 – 12 weeks. Our hope is this increased ship frequency will allow us to respond to customer requests more quickly.

We’d love to hear your thoughts on what features you would like to see in XM and how frequent you would like to have access to updates to the tool. If you’re interested in additional information, I will be updating this blog periodically with the latest status on XM.

I hope you’ve found this information useful and I look forward to writing to you again.

Thanks for all your time,

Eric Feng
Program Manager for SQL Server Express