Can replication work between SQL 2005 publisher and SQL 2008 subscriber?

Question

I see this question here on SO but I am not sure that answers my question. My Central SQL server is 2005 Standard. I am developing an app that requires SQL Express to be installed locally. I am then programmatically creating the Subscriptions and then Syncing them.

Can I use 2008 Express for this on the local machines?

Answer 1

In short, yes.

The technology is backwards compatible and so a SQL Server 2008 subscriber can receive a subscription from a SQL Server 2005 Publisher.

For detailed documentation on the backward compatibility of SQL Server Replication please consult the following reference:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms143323.aspx

Answer 2

John Samson ansered "In short, yes." but the answer is "In reality, no."

I realize this is old, but I ran into exactly the same situation as the original poster and found this posting and used the short answer above to start working on it. I got an error that explictly said I needed SQL 2008 or later as the publisher to use SQL 2008 Express as the subscriber. This MS page:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms143241.aspx

clearly states it in the matrix of publishers and subscribers: " This configuration is not supported because the Publisher version must be equal to or greater than the Subscriber version."

Anyway, I wanted to post the clarification in hopes that it will save the next person the time and frustration it cost me.