How do I open a local SQL server database file outside of Visual Studio?

Question

Is it possible to open a .mdf database file created in Visual Studio with some external SQL server IDE like Quest Toad for SQL server? Databases created in Visual Studio are rather similar to simple Access databases in that they're a single file.

It appears external IDE's like Toad can't see the .mdf being served by my localhost's SQL server instance under MYMACHINE\SQLEXPRESS - I assume because these files are only served within Visual Studio with the .Net framework provider for SQL server, so my local sql server instance doesn't serve these files. Is that the case? Is there some way to access these databases locally outside of Visual Studio?

Thanks in advance!

Answer 1

Download TOAD for SQL Server.

You don't point TOAD to an MDF file. You point it to the SQL Server application that is serving the MDF file. If you are using SQL Server Express (2005), the server would default to ./SQLEXPRESS and you would use Windows authentication.

Answer 2

a problem you may be having with sql express is it might not be on the standard port, look at my answer here to see if it helps: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/449607#449656

Answer 3

What you are seeing are user instances. Sql Express only loads those upon request with a special connection string. It is possible to use Sql Management Studio Express in combination with the SSETool to load an instance so you can management more details