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A free fully functional database is yours with Microsoft's SQL Server Express

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What is your favorite inexpensive database application? Will you take a look at SQL Server 2005 Express Edition?

There are certain functions it's blocked from performimg. Looking at it soon as a replacement for MSDE.
For the apps you'd use sqlexpress for MySQL would be better or PostGre. It's only real advantage is you can easily scale up to the full product when required.

My personal favorite database is MySQL, it is stable, scalable and free. Also, with the introduction of version 5.0 there are stored procedures, functions and triggers. Add to it the Administrator and Query Browser and I?m a happy camper. Version 5.1, which is still an alpha, will add XML.

Another 'spoiler' attempt from Microsoft again waking up to the fact that others do the job better, cheaper, faster, smaller and platform independent! Using money and muscle where vision, invention, performance and reliabilty have stolen a march on them.
Don't touch it - use MySQL instead. It is fully featured, fast and scalable. It works on your laptop and it works in a server farm. It is used by more ISPs and powers more websites than any other database. I wonder why Microsoft might be interested....?

DTS services. I have spent hours trying to get SQK 2K DTS or 5K SSIS (Integration Services) hooked up to SQL 5K Express, to no avail. Ever try to pre-load a table in SQL on your website without DTS? I also learned about 3-4 hints would have helped dramatically with the setting up for database connectivity. I finally ended with ODBC. I only toughed it out because MS said support for MDSE 2K expires in 2007. If anyone manages to get DTS or SSIS running in this product, please let me know!

SSIS has replaced DTS in the newest version of SQL Server 2005
I don't know what exactly you are trying to do, but once compiled as a VB executable, an SQL Server 2000 DTS package can be used with SQL Server Express Edition or any other database (MS Access as an example) for which there is an ADO or ODBC provider.
If you are able to write a DTS package on another SQL 2000 system, you can download
the DTS runtime to execute it on SQL Express from
Feature Pack for Microsoft SQL Server 2005 - November 2005.
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=d09c1d60-a13c-4479-9b91-9e8b9d835cdc&DisplayLang=en

Alternately maybe you can use SqlBulkCopy a new feature of Ado.NET 2.0,

Why would you bother?

Develop and deploy with MySQL, Postgres, or even Oracle XE - http://www.oracle.com/technology/products/database/xe/index.html - and you have true database capabilities from the beginning.

With MySql & PostgreSql available free of cost to the whole wide world without preconditions & can be deployed on windows(using cygwin) or unix/linux so i'm not sure how the microsoft express edition would be a better choice.
I believe it can only be deployed on a WINDOWS server platform(professional/server editions of windows software)

Microsoft will only deploy on Microsft.

Some tests a few years ago showed the then current version of SQL Server (6.0 I think) against MySQl 3.xx and Oracle.

In a variety of speed tests, SQL Server was (from memory) about 9 times slower and Oracle over 20 times slower.

With the open development methods and platform independence, MySQl & PostgreSql are streets ahead of anything else for 'normal' commercial use. By which I mean complex databases up to 1 Terrabyte.

Easy to backup too, with simple file snapshots at regular intervals.

Where does MS Access fit into all this database mishmash? Have played with it made a couple of tables and got bored.

Access is a desktop, principally designed for power users and single user desktops systems. All attempts to use is as a DBMS are doomed to at best, a limited failure.

You will hear otherwise, but as a client server DBMS it just sucks, so if you want one, or you expect to scale to one at some point in the future, don't go near it. There used to be an excuse in that it came 'free' with MS Office, given MS's free limited products and other offerings on the market, that's no longer valid as a reason to use beyond it's capacity.

I agree with Tony. My first db project was connecting an Access db to an ASP intranet web page a few years ago. I quickly realized that Access would only allow 10 simultaneous connections to the db which meant only 10 of our HR people could use the website at the same time. We ended up spending the extra money and upgrading to MS SQL Server due to connection limitations. I'm not sure of the current connection limitations on Access, but I'd stay away from it if you plan to grow your db.

MS Access is only limited by those with limited initiative. I built systems that used 40+ simultaneous users (helpdesk app) and others that had a database that approached 900 Meg in size, and functioned. It is all in how you connect to it. If you use textbook code, which a paid "consultant" did for us in one application, you are doomed to failure. Or at lease data loss errors. If you are a MS SQL developer that does not use MS Access as a development tool, you are wasting the money of those that pay you. Access is not free (only the database is), and you have to spend time learning how to use it. Every SQL project I develop has Access right there beside Enterprise Manager during the database creation and adjustment phase. Gripe about no DTS in SQL 5000 Express, but not about MS Access. A good mechanic does not blame the wrench when he cannot get the job done.

Some of us have worked on systems with tables bigger than that.

A little MySQL system I was working on was up to 3.5 gig compressed after a mere 14 months.

You would struggle big style to do that with access, ten years data unlikely, so you would be mad to start.

Access is good at what it does, there are somethings it doesn't do though because it wasn't designed to do them. If it did it would have bumped into SQL Server and messed up MS's product strategy. That's not a criticism.

I didn't say you could n't stretch the limits of access, there are all sorts of design tricks to get something usable. It would have been a lot easier with a proper DBMS, though.

You can sink in a fence post with a toffee hammer as well, it uses a lot of effort and takes much longer though.

After 6 years of dumping Microsoft DBs into MySQL, it would be a hard sell for me.

A friend got me started on the PHP / MySQL world and showed me the versatility of the product even though I had always used SQL Server from Microsoft. Even though I am in charge of maintaining our MS-SQL Servers and am a Microsoft fan because they make sense for long term usage in the business world, I usually choose MySQL for on the fly programming and backend scripts; mainly because its FREE and stable. The one thing that scares me about a free Microsoft tool is that it will not be supported in 3 years (like the SUS admin tool). Then again, Oracle could take over MySQL and we'd all be screwed.

I will take a look at SQL Server 2005, but it has to be robust and needs to be easy to use since I don't have a lot of time to waste figuring out the new features.

Well Oracle bought InnoDB and is buying Sleepycat and its embedded database, Berkeley DB.
MySQL's license contract is due to be renegotiated later this year for InnoDB, MySQL's transaction engine. Will Oracle up the price?

read the license again.
it clearly states for PERSONAL use only.

so a small business cannot use it.


I would actually recommend using MySql instead.
fully functional, more capable, scalable and with a proven track record for reliability and security.