SQL Server Everywhere Blog

Hi,

With the change in name of product SQL Server Everywhere Edition to SQL Server Compact Edition, we will also be changing our blog name. The address for new blog site is http://blogs.msdn.com/sqlservercompact/ . For convenience, we have moved few important blog entries as well to this new site.

We will be posting more this week.

Thanks

Sachin

Hi,

SQL Server Compact Edition RTW (release to web) will happen in December end /mid January timeframe. We are currently working round the clock to release the product as soon as possible.

Till RTW is done, the SQL Server Compact Edition RC1 will remain available at http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=85E0C3CE-3FA1-453A-8CE9-AF6CA20946C3&displaylang=en .

We will update you all about the exact date of release in a week time.

Thanks

Sachin

Program Manager

SQL Server Compact Edition

SQL Server Compact Edition RC1 is released on web. You can download it from http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=85E0C3CE-3FA1-453A-8CE9-AF6CA20946C3&displaylang=en

SQL Server Everywhere Edition is renamed to SQL Server Compact Edition.

SQL Server 2005 Compact Edition was previously named SQL Server 2005 Everywhere Edition during the product development phase. Customers have communicated to Microsoft through the pre-release community technology preview (CTP) program and other channels that this product name may cause potential confusion with other database product names in the industry. Microsoft has taken this feedback seriously and has accordingly changed the official product name.

You may see references to the former name SQL Server 2005 Everywhere Edition in the CTP and Release Candidate software and documentation. These references will be changed to the actual product name SQL Server 2005 Compact Edition when the product is officially released to market.

SQL Server Compact Edition RC1 is for the SQL Server Compact Edition runtime bits. This release is an extension to the June CTP release of runtime bits which incorporates several feedbacks from various customers after CTP. SQL Server Compact Edition will be released to market in the month of December.

Please see here http://blogs.msdn.com/stevelasker/archive/2006/10/31/sql-server-everywhere-gets-yet-another-name.aspx for more information on new name for the product.

SQL Server Compact Edition RC1 runtime

The runtime bits (SQLServerEv31-EN.msi) can be downloaded and installed on the desktop from the location shown above (http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=85E0C3CE-3FA1-453A-8CE9-AF6CA20946C3&displaylang=en). The runtime installation will GAC the provider and makes the necessary registry entry for OLEDB. This necessitates the admin install for the runtime package. Similar to SQL Server Compact Edition CTP (earlier known as SQL Server Everywhere Edition CTP), SQL Server compact Edition RC1 includes the ClickOnce and |DataDirectory| features. While with SQL Server Compact Edition CTP, the |DataDirectory| substitution string worked only with the SqlCeConnection object and did not work when the |DataDirectory| substitution string is used in the connection string property of the SqlCeEngine object, of the SqlCeReplication object, and of the SqlCeRemoteDataAccess object. Now with the RC1, |DataDirectory| substitution string will work with SqlCeConnection, SqlCeEngine, SqlCeReplication and SqlCeRemoteDataAccess.

Designer support for SQL Server Compact Edition

The designer support for SQL Server Compact Edition RC1 will be available with SQL Server Compact Edition Tools for Visual Studio 2005 SP1 Beta which is available at http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=61289b5d-af86-45dd-8962-e7dcc5221796&displaylang=en . SQL Server Compact Edition Tools for Visual Studio 2005 SP1 Beta software updates the Visual Studio SP1 Beta smart device development components with the design time environment for SQL Server Compact Edition. It also provides the integrated ClickOnce functionality by placing the ClickOnce bootstrapper XML files and SQL Server Compact Edition CTP runtime package in the required folder as shown below;

SQLServerEv31-EN.msi: %Program Files%\Microsoft Visual Studio 8\SDK\v2.0\BootStrapper\Packages\SQL Server Everywhere \en\

Package.xml: %Program Files%\Microsoft Visual Studio 8\SDK\v2.0\BootStrapper\Packages\SQL Server Everywhere \en\

Product.xml: %Program Files%\Microsoft Visual Studio 8\SDK\v2.0\BootStrapper\Packages\SQL Server Everywhere\

Please note that when ClickOnce is used for the deploying an application, it will use SQL Server Compact Edition CTP runtime package (SQLServerEv31-EN.msi) present in the local directory (as shown above). To use SQL Server Compact Edition RC1 runtime package for deployment from the local machine, please copy the RC1 runtime package to the directory shown above (%Program Files%\Microsoft Visual Studio 8\SDK\v2.0\BootStrapper\Packages\SQL Server Everywhere \en\). If Runtime package is not avilable on the local directory, then it will download the RC1 runtime from web.

Other related downloads

Please post your queries and question to SQL Server Compact Edition Forum: http://forums.microsoft.com/msdn/showforum.aspx?forumid=152&siteid=1

Keep blogging!

Sachin Sinha

PM, SQL Server Compact Edition

SQL Server 2005 Mobile Edition is now available for Windows CE 4.2 for following processors:

ARMv4, ARMv4i, MIPSII, MIPSII FP, MIPSIV, MIPSIV FP, SH3, SH4 and x86.

One can get SQL Mobile bits on Windows CE 4.2 for the above processors in following 2 ways:

1. Platform Builder route
2. Cabs deployment route

For #1, please install the Platform Builder 4.2 QFE KB923390 which will allow SQL Mobile component to appear in Platform Builder 4.2. Chose SQL Mobile as a catalog item in your workspace and do a build.

For #2, SQL Mobile cabs for all processors are located on the Hotfix site. Please contact Microsoft Customer Support Center to obtain the cabs for the specific processor type. At present, cabs are available via the Quick Fix Engineering (QFE) approach. A KB article is in the process of publication, KB924811

Rajesh Rana, Manger Test - SQL Server Mobile

Today we are very pleased to announce the CTP release of Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Everywhere Edition Access Database Synchronizer (ADS) for which many of you been waiting eagerly. To download the product you can visit the SQL Server Mobile Edition/SQL Server Everywhere Edition product page or click on this link to Access Database Synchronizer reach the download page directly.

Access Database Synchronizer provides a way to synchronize data between Microsoft Access database on a desktop and Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Everywhere Edition database on a device.

The salient features of this solution are summarized below

Ø       Provides a synchronization solution between SQL Server Mobile Edition/SQL Server Everywhere Edition and Microsoft Access. Data conversion should be done while synchronizing the data.

Ø       Synchronization will happen if there is an active ActiveSync connection between the device and the desktop.

Ø       There will be no update to SQL Mobile/SSEv on the device. The solution consists of only of desktop side component which works with the existing client agent on the device.

Ø       Based on existing RDA replication model. Replication setup and programming is exactly the same as RDA today

Ø       Applications written today do not need to be updated if the solution is upsized from access to SQL Server

Ø       No conflict detection/resolution is implemented.

The CTP setup installs the desktop component required for synchronizing Microsoft Access database with SQL Server Everywhere Edition database on the device. It also includes a read me file which has the documentation for the solution and a sample application. The sample application shows how the solution works and how to write applications for this solution. The components installed on the desktop can be used by third party applications to provide data synchronization between Microsoft Access database on the desktop and SQL Server Everywhere Edition/SQL Mobile database on the device.

Access Database Synchronizer Architecture

The operating systems supported for the CTP release are

Ø       Microsoft Windows XP Professional SP2

Ø       Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition SP2

Ø       Microsoft Windows XP Media Center Edition 2002 SP2

Ø       Microsoft Windows XP Media Center Edition 2004 SP2

Ø       Microsoft Windows XP Tablet PC Edition SP2

Additionally we plan to support the following operating systems for RTW

Ø       Microsoft Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005

Ø       Microsoft Windows Vista

Following versions of Microsoft Access are supported for CTP release

Ø       Microsoft Access 2000 SP3 (Microsoft Office 2000)

Ø       Microsoft Access 2002 SP3 (Microsoft Office 2002)

Ø       Microsoft Office Access 2003 SP2 (Microsoft Office 2003)

For RTW, we plan to support Microsoft Office 12 as well.

This solution will work with all installations for SQL Server Mobile Edition/SQL Server Everywhere Edition on devices. The sample application provided is supported only on Windows Mobile 5.0 Pocket PC edition.

Note: As of today only SQL Server Mobile Edition is available for devices. SQL Server Everywhere Edition whould be available for devices at time of SQL Server Everywhere Edition RTW whihc is planned for November 2006

Feedback

We look forward to you providing us feedback about this solution so that we can make it better and as close to your requirements as possible

You can provide us feedback at

SQL Server Mobile Edition/SQL Server Everywhere Edition MSDN Forum

And

SQL Server Everywhere Edition Blog - Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Everywhere Edition Access Database Synchronizer (ADS)

Know Issues

Please visit this section regulary to keep abreast with the known issues which we will post here regularly.

Manish Agnihotri

Program Manager

Hi,

We have been getting good feedback from you all on the CTP release of SQL Server Everywhere 2005 Edition or SSEv for short.

One question on CTP has been on the platforms supported by SSEv. For CTP we had deliberately omitted Windows 2000 from the list of supported platforms because with Windows Vista around the corner we want to limit the platforms to contain the test effort. Based on feedback from you on the importance of supporting Windows 2000 we have added Windows 2000 to the list of features that we’ll support for the RTW version of SSEv.

A second question that has come up is accessing SSEv from VB 6 using the OLEDB interface. The sample skeleton code below shows how to accomplish it in VB 6. The code assumes that there is a sample SSEv database at c:\MyDB.sdf, which has a table ‘Employee’ with three columns. Note that there is a sample program that shows how to access OLEDB thru C++ at http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms173261.aspx.

One thing that I want to clarify is that the version number in the provider string is 3.0 and not 3.1 because there is incremental difference only between SQL Mobile and SSEv. In a future version of SSEv we will likely change the version number in the provider string.

    Dim pConn As ADODB.Connection

    Dim pRS As ADODB.Recordset

    Dim sStr As String

    Set pConn = New ADODB.Connection

    Set pRS = New ADODB.Recordset

   pConn.ConnectionString= "PROVIDER=Microsoft.SQLSERVER.MOBILE.OLEDB.3.0;Data Source=C:\\MyDB.sdf"

    pConn.Open

    sStr = "Select * from employee"

    ' Open the recordset

    pRS.Open sStr, pConn, adOpenForwardOnly

   Do Until pRS.EOF

     ' Employee table has an emp_fname column that represents the first name of employee

     ' List1 is a list control

     List1.AddItem pRS!emp_fname

     pRS.MoveNext

   Loop

   pRS.Close

   pConn.Close

 Set pRS = Nothing

 Set pConn = Nothing

The following snippet of ADO code shows how to print the table and column names using the same connection object as above:

Dim rsFields As ADODB.Recordset

Set rsFields = pConn.OpenSchema(adSchemaColumns)

Do Until rsFields.EOF

Debug.Print "Table: " & rsFields!TABLE_NAME

Debug.Print "  Field: " & rsFields!COLUMN_NAME

rsFields.MoveNext

Loop

Thanks and keep the feedback coming.

Regards,

Sitaram Raju

SQL Server Everywhere Edition Community Technology Preview

A Community Technology Preview of SQL Server Everywhere Edition, the newest addition to the SQL Server family is being announced at TechEd on Monday, June 12^th.  The CTP will be available at www.microsoft.com/sql/everywhere.  SQL Server Everywhere Edition is the next generation of SQL Server Mobile, offering essential relational database functionality in a compact footprint, ideal for embedding in mobile and desktop applications.

For CTP the SQL Server Everywhere Edition MSI is uploaded on the web. This MSI contains only the desktop runtime bits of SQL Server Everywhere Edition. Runtime bits include the Storage Engine, Query Processor, OLEDB Stack, ADO.Net stack and the client side connectivity components. This MSI can be installed on any machine (even on machine which doesn’t have SQL Server 2005 or Visual Studio 2005). You need to be an administrator to install this MSI. When the MSI is installed SQL Server Everywhere Edition runtime bits are placed under %PROGRAM FILES%\Microsoft SQL Server Everywhere\ directory. The ADO.Net provider Dll will be GACed during the installation.

Tools support: Developing desktop application using SQL Server Everywhere Edition:

In SQL Mobile when we supported developing desktop applications for Tablet PC, the development story was not very smooth. User needs to do some manual copy of Dll to make it working. Now with SQL Server Everywhere Edition CTP, we enable a smooth development story for desktop applications. No manual steps are involved. To make the development story complete we also enabled smooth deployment (ClickOnce)

ClickOnce / Data Directory support:

Along with the SQL Server Everywhere Edition CTP, the bootstrap package for SQL Server Everywhere Edition is available on the web to enable click once scenario. Developers can download both the MSI and click once bootstrap and install it. Once they complete developing desktop application with SQL Server Everywhere Edition, they can use this bootstrap package to enable ClickOnce deployment on desktops. Data Directory macro is also enabled when connection is established through SqlCeConnection object.

Uniform database story across device and desktop:

Since SQL Server Everywhere Edition is build over the SQL Mobile technology, we retain database compatibility between these two. With Whidbey SP1, developers will get the device bits of SQL Server Everywhere Edition. Since the database compatibility is maintained, users can copy the database from device to desktop or vice versa and continue to use the file. With this we enable a uniform database story from device to desktop.

Redistributing SQL Server Everywhere Edition MSI:

            Developers can package the SQL Server Everywhere Edition MSI along with their desktop application setup. During their setup they can invoke the MSI and SQL Server Everywhere Edition bits will be placed on the central %PROGRAMFILES%%\Microsoft SQL Server Everywhere\ directory. You need to have admin rights to run this MSI. Whenever SQL Server Everywhere Edition is installed through MSI (under admin rights) then Microsoft will be able to service it.

Developers can also copy and package SQL Server Everywhere Edition Dll’s along with their applications. In this case Microsoft will not be servicing these Dlls.

Database Management support:

            Databases which are created through SQL Server Everywhere Edition CTP can be managed through SQL Server Management Studio. Through SQL Server Management Studio all database operations on SQL Server Everywhere Edition is enabled. SQL Server Management Studio which shipped with SQL Server 2005 RTM, SP1 will still say SQL Mobile in UI. Since SQL Server Everywhere Edition is built over SQL Mobile technology the dialog which says SQL Mobile will continue to work for SQL Server Everywhere Edition. With SQL Server 2005 SP2 release, those dialogs will start to say SQL Server Everywhere Edition.

Development tools support:

            In Visual Studio 2005 RTM all dialogs which continue to say SQL Mobile will continue to work for SQL Server Everywhere Edition. With Visual Studio 2005 SP1, those dialogs will be changed to SQL Server Everywhere Edition.

Synchronization with SQL Server 2005:

            SQL Mobile which shipped with SQL Server 2005 and Visual Studio 2005 support synchronization with SQL Server 2005, using the SQL Mobile Server tools installation. The same setup will continue to work for SQL Server Everywhere Edition CTP.

We are waiting for you to use SQL Server Everywhere Edition CTP and looking for your feedback. I am Manikandan, Development Lead in SQL Server Everywhere Group.

Thanks

-Mani

Your Data, Any Place, Any Time

SQL Server 2005 Everywhere Edition CTP Edition is the new version of SQL Server Mobile, and is an important product release in realizing the vision of the Microsoft’s Data Platform team – “Your Data, Any Place, Any Time”. SQL Server Everywhere CTP is being announced in the TechEd on June 12, 2006 and is the new addition to the SQL Server Family and it will be available at www.microsoft.com/sql/everywhere or at download center

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=85e0c3ce-3fa1-453a-8ce9-af6ca20946c3&displaylang=en

The announcement of the release of SQL Server Everywhere Edition by Paul Flessener on April 6^th had generated extremely positive response from the MVP’s, customer and the media and this release of the CTP in about two months after the announcement is a great achievement and reflects the commitment of the team to realize the Microsoft’s vision in Data Platform technology.

SQL Mobile was released with VS2005 and SQL Server 2005 in 2005 and it was supported on devices, tablet PCs and partially on desktop. SQL Server Everywhere Edition CTP is the re-branding of SQL Mobile 3.0 with the desktop restriction removed which will enable user to develop and deploy application on desktop independent of Visual Studio 2005 or SQL Server 2005. SQL Server Everywhere Edition CTP will result in the deployment of the small database pervasively across millions of Desktops and Tablet PC’s across the world.

SQL Server Everywhere Edition CTP provides a lightweight, compact, but rich subset of the capabilities found in other SQL Server editions. Beyond having rich local data management capabilities, SQL Server Everywhere Edition will also include support for seamlessly synchronizing with other SQL Server editions and provides features that promote building rich client applications that operate effectively in today’s increasingly “occasionally connected” environment. SQL Server Everywhere Edition also shares a common programming model with the other SQL Server editions, enabling developers to transfer skills and knowledge quickly and easily. The CTP of SQL Server Everywhere Edition contains the runtime bits only and the final release before the end of this calendar year will contain the device support as well.

What you get with the CTP

The SQL Server Everywhere Edition CTP contains runtime bits only packaged in MSI (SQLServerEv31-EN.msi) and a zip file which contains ClickOnce files.

The SQL Server Everywhere Edition MSI will be available on the web at the download center. When user downloads and install this MSI then it will always get installed in the fixed location. The reason for this forced fixed location installation is to take care of future serviceability of SQL Server Everywhere Edition. The installation of SQL Server Everywhere Edition will also install the provider (System.Data.SqlServerCe.dll) in the GAC (global assembly cache) and register the OLEDB provide (sqlceoledb30.dll). This requires admin privilege on the machine hence SQL Server Everywhere Edition can only be installed with admin privilege. Non-admin install is not supported. When installed, SQL Server Everywhere Edition bits will go in following location

%Program Files%\Microsoft SQL Server Everywhere\v3.1

So if program files directory is in C drive then SQL Server Everywhere Edition runtime binaries will get installed in following directory;

C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server Everywhere\v3.1

After installing SSEv CTP, it will add an entry in the Add or Remove Programs as “Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Everywhere Edition CTP”.

New Features:

Apart from doing the re-branding, SQL Server Everywhere Edition will have additional features as compared to SQL Mobile 3.0 and they are;

·         |DataDirectory| support

·         ClickOnce support

DataDirectory:

|DataDirectory| (enclosed in pipe symbols) is a substitution string that indicates the path to the database. It eliminates the need to hard-code the full path which leads to several problems as the full path to the database could be serialized in different places. DataDirectory also makes it easy to share a project and also to deploy an application.

For example, instead of having the following connection string:

"Data Source= c:\program files\MyApp\Mydb.sdf"

Using DataDirectory, you can have the following connection string:

“Data Source = |DataDirectory|\Mydb.sdf”

ClickOnce:

ClickOnce is a new application deployment technology supported by SQL Server Everywhere Edition that simplifies deploying a Windows-based application to a Web server or network file share. For administrators, deploying or updating an application is simply a matter of updating files on a server; without individually updating every client. Visual Studio provides full support for publishing and updating applications deployed with ClickOnce. ClickOnce deployment is available for projects created with Visual Basic, Visual C#, and Visual J#, but not for Visual C++.

To integrate ClickOnce with SQL Server Everywhere Edition, user will need to download the ClickOnce ZIP files and nzip them in the proper folder under BootStrapper directory.

Please see the KB article linked in the download page of the CTP for more info on these two new items.

SQL Server Everywhere Edition is not targeted to be used under IIS when the connection is established thru SqlCeConnection object. Any such usage is unsupported. However, in a very limited and restricted scenarios, ISVs may choose to use SQL Server Everywhere Edition under IIS by setting AppDomain property.

There would be more blogs on this from various member of the team to provide more detail information on new features.

We would be glad to receive your feedbacks on the SQL Server Everywhere Edition CTP. Please feel free to ask any question or discuss any issue related to the CTP. Bye for now.

Sachin Sinha,

Program Manager

Traditionally on Windows CE, CEDB was used as the local store. From Windows Mobile 5.0 onwards EDB is the preferred local store but it doesn’t have query capabilities. SQL Mobile and soon SQL Server 2005 Everywhere Edition (SSEV) is the local storage if applications need data query capabilities. ADOCE provided functionality to synchronize a CEDB database with MS Access on desktop. ADOCE is not supported in Windows Mobile 2005 and those customers/ISVs that used ADOCE to synchronize CEDB with Access desktop database are seeing a gap in this functionality. Hence these customers/ISVs don’t have a good migration path when they move to Windows Mobile 2005. To address this functionality gap we are implementing Sync with Access to synchronize SQL Mobile with Access. Customers/ISVs can migrate from CEDB/ADOCE to SQL Mobile/Sync with Access. Providing SQL Mobile synchronization with MS Access will also speed up the SQL Mobile adoption. A solution developed using SQL Mobile/SSEV and MS Access sync will have the capability to scale up to SQL Mobile/SSEV and SQL Server replication solution.

The beta for this solution should be available in August 2006 and a final release before end of 2006.

Main features of “Sync with Access” are as follows

       Provides a synchronization solution between SQL Mobile/SSEV and MS Access. Data conversion should be done while synchronizing the data.

       Synchronization will happen if there is an active ActiveSync connection between the device and the desktop.

       There will be no update to SQL Mobile/SSEV on the device. Only PC-side component.

       Based on existing RDA replication model. Replication setup and programming is exactly the same as RDA today

       Applications written today do not need to be updated if the solution is upsized from access to SQL Server

       No conflict detection/resolution will be implemented. If a solution requires a conflict resolution, SQL Server merge replication should be used.

       The solution will only work with SQL Mobile 3.0 and later versions. Compatibility with SQL CE 2.0 is not provided.

The beta for this solution should be available in August 2006 and a final release before end of 2006.

“Sync with Access” – Architecture

Manish Agnihotri,

Program Manager

Hi and welcome to the SQL Mobile blog!

The SQL Mobile team wants to make this blog a place where we can provide all kinds of information about SQL Mobile and get your feedback. A quick introduction: my name is Sitaram Raju and I am the Group Manager for SQL Mobile group.

The big recent news is that SQL Mobile will be available on desktop. Paul Flessner announced it on April 6^th, 2006 and SQL Mobile will be re-branded as SQL Server Everywhere Edition or SSEv for short. You can find more information about it at http://blogs.msdn.com/stevelasker/archive/2006/04/10/SqlEverywhereInfo.aspx.

One big customer feature request has been to make SQL Mobile available on Windows CE. Currently if you download the SQL Mobile Device SDK at http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=5BD8ABAA-5813-4DB3-B23A-24551DE2ECC1&displaylang=en you will get cabs for all supported processors of Windows CE 5.0 and a cab for just the ARM processor for Windows CE 4.2.Customers have requested:

1.      To make available SQL Mobile for all supported processors of Windows CE 4.2. The full processor list is ARMv4, ARMv4i, MIPSII, MIPSII FP, MIPSIV, MIPSIV FP, SH4 and x86.

2.      To make SQL Mobile for Windows CE 4.2 available as Platform Builder component so that a customized Windows CE 4.2 image with SQL Mobile can be created.

3.      To make SQL Mobile for Windows CE 5.0 available as Platform Builder component so that a customized Windows CE 5.0 image can be created.

The first two features will be available shortly after .NET CF 2.0 SP1 is released. The link to .NET CF 2.0 SP1 Beta is at http://blogs.msdn.com/netcfteam/archive/2006/04/21/580901.aspx. The third feature will be available with the June update of Platform Builder.

This is just the first post. The various members of SQL Mobile team will be posting to this blog and we look forward to your comments and responses.

Thanks,

Sitaram Raju