The VistaDB Express product line has been discontinued.
This article is for historical reference only. We are in the process of adding VistaDB Lite as a low cost introductory database for this segment of users.
What is it?
VistaDB Express is a free edition of VistaDB for non commercial use. This includes hobbyists, 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 3.5 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 GUI 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 VistaDB Express 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 – managed stored procedures
- SQL Stored Procedures – highly compatible with SQL Server TSQL Procs
- User Defined Functions (UDF) - support for managed assembly UDF functions
- Updatable Views
- SQL Exception Handling – Try catch support within SQL Procs
- XCopy deployable Data Builder GUI for managing your database
- 32 and 64 Bit Windows Support with a single assembly deployment - no need to rebind
- Single and Multi user support
- Table-Valued Params and Temp Tables
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.
Data Builder UI Changes
New launch screen showing a cached list of recent stories from our Blog. We will continue to update this over time (maximum of once ever 4 hours). You may uncheck the update box to prevent it from checking for a new landing page. The launch page also shows the most recent databases for quick reload of the files.
New menu items in Data Builder include the following:
Online Help
Sends you to the online version of the help file.
Online Samples
The samples / tutorials main starting area on the website (under construction).
Check for Updates
Transmits your current Build information only to the server and asks for the latest update. If an update is available you will be prompted and the Account Manager site will be launched for you to login and download. Trial users will not be able to download later builds unless they upgrade to a subscription.
Query Plans
Query Plans have been removed. They were really nothing more than query guesses, and almost always inaccurate as to what was really happening in the engine. Once we get real plans working they will return.
Clear the Log on execute
Check as an option. This will prevent the log from growing long after multiple runs and make it very easy to see what was just executed only.
Help files
Help files have been updated, and a few new sample were promoted to the 3.x install as well. We will continue to evaluate these and add more as we can over time. A few samples were included from the forums as well. The online help is usually more current than the local version, but sometimes you are not online.
Updates to Engine
There are also a number of updates to the VistaDB engine from the last VistaDB Express build. We continue to release updates and improve the quality of VistaDB, thank you to all of our users for your continued support.
As always if you encounter any problems or have questions we would like to know. Please visit our forums and post your questions.
Upgrading from previous VistaDB Express versions
To upgrade 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 and running.
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.
Migrating your data to VistaDB
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.
Access 2007 Data Migration
In order to migrate an Access 2007 database you must have the Access 2007 runtime or full product installed on your machine. There is NO 64 bit Access runtime, you must flag your application as 32 bit in order to run Access as a runtime on 64 bit Windows.
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