References/walkthroughs for maintaining database schemas with Visual Studio 2010?

Question

I have Visual Studio 2010 Beta 2 and SQL Server 2008 installed. I'm working with a populated database and want to modify various column types. SQL Server Management Studio requires me to drop tables to do this, and get pretty finicky given my moderate level of knowledge of SQL Server.

However, I heard the new database project type supports changing the database schema to the desired format and it will handle creating and running all the scripts to implement the changes.

I've created a VS2010 database project using the existing database as the source, but so far haven't had much luck figuring out the appropriate method to make the changes without getting an error.

As a result, I'm looking for any reference info I can find on using VS2010's capabilities in this area. Any suggestions?

Answer 1

write scripts instead of using the gui. You can use alter table for instance to change a column. Never use a GUI of any kind to create a change to a database table.

Answer 2

Here's a walk through of the new VS2010 "Deploy-SQL" tab in the properties page of web application projects.

http://bit.ly/11HIz9