MSDE on Windows 2003

Hi out there
I am using a windows 2003 std. edition and feel pretty stupid - somewhere in the OS there should be an embedded MSDE SQL 2000 engine that should support 5 parallel connections - but I cannot "find" it ? - of course I could download it - but this is not the problem - behind what is this std MSDE engine hidden or what server role do I need to install to get this facility enabled ?

regards /ti

 

I may be mistaken, but I don't think MSDE is installed or available with Win2003 by default. You need to download it from Microsoft and install it. Read more here

It is a cutdown version of SQL server. There are restrictions to the number of connections that can be made to it. Also you don't get the range of tools that you get with the full SQL.

MS are also beta testing a SQL Express which appears to be their intended replacement to MSDE. It has better tools and a closer connection to .net.

However, I would strongly recommend that you install these database applicaitons on a workstation and play with them there before installing them on an active server. I foolishly installed SQL 2005 beta on a Win2003 server and had to format and reinstall to get it off again.

If you are installing SQL for development work it is also worth looking at the Developer Edition of SQL 2000. There
are some very good offers about for this version. This will give you an excellent SQL database with all the tools to create and support new data tables.

MySQL is also well worth a look. There are good reasons to use this rather than the MS SQL (Open license, Cross platform, less impact on other systems - the latest MS SQL version ties into .Net quite closely). I find it easier to play around with MySQL than MS SQL.