Steve Lasker's Web Log

SQL Server Everywhere Edition CTP is here

Today, June 12th, we released the first CTP of SQL Server Everywhere Edition (SSEv). 
www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=85e0c3ce-3fa1-453a-8ce9-af6ca20946c3&displaylang=en
The main SQL site will also be updated to include info on SQL Server Everywhere Edition: www.Microsoft.com/Sql/Everywhere

This release has a couple of key features:

• Now supported on Windows XP, Windows 2003 and yes Vista
• |DataDirectory| macro for dynamic database location resolution
• Ability to GAC the ADO.net provider
• MSI for easily deploying SSEv w/ClickOnce, SMS and other deployment technologies
• Visual Studio integration for ClickOnce
• Full support for all of the Sql Mobile features, including the SqlCeResultSet and RDA.

To get a sense of the ease of use of the SqlCeResultset, try the following:

1. Download the CTP above and install it.  At 1.7mb for the runtime download, it will likely take less then a minute to download and install
2. Create a new windows forms project
3. Drag a DataGridView and BindingSource to your form
4. Using the smart tag, dock the DataGridView to the parent container
5. On the property grid set the DataGridView1.DataSource to BindingSource1
6. Download the full version of the Northwind database from my blog at: http://www.windowsforms.net/blogs/Stevelas/Code/Northwind_sdf.zip and copy it to your project directory.  got to love the code free, single file format <g>
   • You can get the smaller sample database from: %ProgramFiles%\Microsoft Visual Studio 8\SmartDevices\SDK\SQL Server\Mobile\v3.0\Northwind.sdf but it only has a subset of the normal Northwind tables, and many of the columns have spaces in them
7. Visual Studio will prompt you with the Data Sources Window to create a Typed Dataset. 
8. Select all tables and click finish.  You can drag from the Data Sources Window later
9. Double click the form to get Form_Load and add the following code:

Me.DataGridView1.AutoGenerateColumns = True
Dim conn As New SqlServerCe.SqlCeConnection()
conn.ConnectionString = "Data Source = |DataDirectory|\Northwind.sdf"
Dim cmd As New SqlServerCe.SqlCeCommand()
cmd.Connection = conn
cmd.CommandText = "SELECT * FROM Employees"
conn.Open()
Me.BindingSource1.DataSource = _
    cmd.ExecuteResultSet(SqlServerCe.ResultSetOptions.Scrollable Or SqlServerCe.ResultSetOptions.Updatable)

Hit F5 and you now have a DataGridView that is databound to an updatable cursor.  How simple and cool is that?

There’s plenty of cool things to do with SSEv.  We’d love to hear the great projects you’ve developed. 

I’m at Tech Ed this week giving several presentations and talking to as many developers as I can.  I’ll post addition demos and info as the week goes on.

The SSEv team has been extremely busy creating this new MSI, creating the ClickOnce package, adding the DataDirectory macro and a host of other things we had to “fit & finish” before making the CTP available.  We even have early, updated docs ready for download.  The team has been really busy as they’ve got 10 other projects their currently working on as they still support the Mobile platform.  Let the SSEv team know what you think at: http://blogs.msdn.com/sqlmobile  They’re a great team that deserves a lot of credit for managing so much in so little time.

Steve