Which should I install first: Visual Studio 2008 or SQL Server 2008

installationsql-server-2008visual-studio-2008

Half a year ago, I installed Visual Studio 2008 and SQL Server 2008. I don't quite remember which I installed first, but since then I am unable to connect to any file-based SQL server databases from the Visual Studio IDE. I think it was related to a bug in Visual Studio, the fact that I had previously installed Visual Studio 2005 on the same system and the order in which I installed both programs.

Now I am soon going to upgrade to Visual Studio Team System and I would rather avoid having the same database connection problems. Should I

A) Uninstall both Visual Studio and SQL Server, then reinstall SQL Server and afterwards Visual Studio?
B) Just uninstall Visual Studio and update to VS Team System?

Thanks,

Adrian

Best Answer

I install the Developer Edition of SQL Server instead of the SQL Server Express edition that comes with VS2008. I find that the install works better if you install SQL Server first, that way there is no need to uninstall the Express edition before installing SQL Server Developer edition. I don't recommend having both editions installed. I had no end of problems until I figured out that having two versions installed was the issue. Uninstalling VS and SQL Server Express may be necessary, but I believe it was enough just to uninstall SQL Server Express and (re)install SQL Server Developer edition.

Related Solutions

Visual-studio – Visual Studio setup problem – ‘A problem has been encountered while loading the setup components. Canceling setup.’

A colleague found this MS auto-uninstall tool which has successfully uninstalled VS2008 for me and saved me hours of work!!

Hopefully this might be useful to others. Doesn't speak highly of MS's faith in their usual VS maintenance tools that they have to provide this as well!

Sql-server – How to check if a column exists in a SQL Server table

SQL Server 2005 onwards:

IF EXISTS(SELECT 1 FROM sys.columns 
          WHERE Name = N'columnName'
          AND Object_ID = Object_ID(N'schemaName.tableName'))
BEGIN
    -- Column Exists
END

Martin Smith's version is shorter:

IF COL_LENGTH('schemaName.tableName', 'columnName') IS NOT NULL
BEGIN
    -- Column Exists
END

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Visual-studio – Visual Studio setup problem – ‘A problem has been encountered while loading the setup components. Canceling setup.’

Sql-server – How to check if a column exists in a SQL Server table

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