VistaDB 3.4 Express Edition
VistaDB Express is no longer available. This article is kept for historical archive only.
What is it?
VistaDB Express is a free edition of VistaDB for non commercial use. This includes hobbysts, mono developers, open source projects, personal websites, user groups, sample application, schools, and much much more.
Why an Express Edition?
We get asked about distribution with free and open source projects (especially mono developers), we needed a license to specifically help these developers use all the cool features of VistaDB in their community as well.
Microsoft decided a long time ago that the Express Development tool (VB Express, C# Express, C++ Express) editions are not allowed to load third party plugins. These editions were specifically aimed at the non professional developer community. Since they can't load the GUI plugins for Visual Studio 2005 and 2008 anyway, we decided to simplify the offering for these users.
Where do I get it?
Get VistaDB 3.4 Express here or the download the VistaDB 30 day trial if you are a commercial entity.
VistaDB Express Highlights
Designed for use with Microsoft Visual Studio Express builds for personal projects, there are no Visual Studio plugins.
- No Server Explorer or Data Binding (Express Editions cannot load them anyway)
- May not be used for commercial purposes
- No in memory databases
- No Isolated storage support
- Database files may not be renamed (must be VDB3)
- No Compact Framework support.
Even with those restrictions it still has a lot of things you can't get from SQL CE:
- Shared Hosting Support
- ASP.Net websites with connection pooling support
- CLR Procs
- TSQL Procs
- UDF Functions
- Updatable Views
- SQL Exception Handling
- XCopy deployable Data Builder GUI for managing your database
- 64 Bit Windows Support with a single assembly deployment - no need to deploy multiple targeted dlls.
For a full review of VistaDB vs SQL CE see our comparison page on the main website.
For a full list of restrictions view the EULA for VistaDB.
Upgrading from VistaDB Express 3.3
To upgrade from 3.3 uninstall the previous version first. Then install the latest release, add the reference in your applications to the latest DLL and you should be off an running.
Once you download if you have a problem running the binary don't forget that Windows Vista blocks binary files by default. Watch this video for information on how to unblock a binary.
SQL CE Data Migration
If you are migrating data from SQL CE note that you must have SQL CE 3.5 SP1 in order to use the Data Migration Wizard. If your data is in CE 3.1 you must open it in 3.5 SP1 and .Update it to the most current format.
BlogEngine.net
Al Nyveldt has a great blog entry about updating BlogEngine.net to VistaDB Express 3.4. If you have not seen it before, BlogEngine.net is an open source blog engine for dot net that has some great features and is actively developed. (Click the link as the domain is not the same as the project name)
NOTE - We are now using the same blog engine as Al!
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