My continuing struggle to get as close to the pro version of Visual Studio.net using only the Express Editions and legitimate downloads... Well... It continues....
I've just managed to get SQL Server Express working pretty well with support for SQL Server Compact and Reporting Services.
You need to get hold of SQL Server 2005 Express Edition with advanced services from here. Install that with all options selected to be installed. Once you've got that in, then you can download and install Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Express Edition Toolkit. Again just install the whole thing. Once that's done you can download Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio Express Service Pack 2. Get that one installed and then fire up the Management Studio and you'll be able to connect to the local SQL Server instance and also any SQL Server Compact Database! You can also fire up the Reporting Services Configuration Tool and get those working. To create reports you need to click on the Business Intelligence Development Studio. If you get an error saying that it can't find devenv.exe then you need to extract all files from SQLEXPR_TOOLKIT.EXE using something like WinZip, find the file called vs_setup.msi and run it. This will install the necessary Visual Studio 2005 files needed for this to run. And Hey Presto... It Works!
The question is... Why... Well basically to see if I could do it. Also as nice as SQL Server Express is, I would have to pay for it on my hosting package at an exorbitant price. So I want to use multiple SQLCE databases for free.
My quest continues...
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