Convert SQL Server Express 2005 .mdf to 2008 .mdf ?

Question

Hi I have a Visual Studio solution and an ASP.NET MVC project that uses a SQL Server Express 2005 database file in the App_Data. I want to know how I can upgrade this file so it works for SQL Server Express 2008 ?

Thanks

Answer 1

All you have to do is create a backup (.bak) of your 2005 db and then restore it on your 2008 Express server. It's that simple.

If you want to deal with it on the file level, simply detach from 2005 and attach to 2008. If it's solution-created in your AppData all you should have to do is move it to the newer project.

Answer 2

You can issue the Attach command in SQL Management Studio 2008. It will name the database with the path to the .mdf, but it'll use it no problem.

The database will be in 2005 compatibility mode, but you can certainly change that yourself as you see fit.

Answer 3

Looks like this database is actually 2008 from what that compatibility level says so I think I am ok. I figured out how to attach the file in SQL Server management studio but thanks for mentioning about the compatibility mode.

I tried out making a backup and then restoring it using the backup file as a database and it made a new mdf file in the same folder as the original which is what I wanted, wasnt very clear that it was going to do that. Thanks