Question which product should I choose?

[psonawane89]

Hi all! I'm Pranit. I'm a student and have been programming in java since last year. Now I'm willing to study & pracitce VB.Net Technology. I'm developing a windows forms application and I need to download the sql server 2012 express edition. There is a huge list of products with big sizes for each. All I want to know is if I'm going to develope windows forms application, which product should I choose. Any advice?
Many Thanks!
Pranit!

 

[jmcilhinney]

Go here:

Database System | Performance & Scalability | SQL Server Express Edition

Click on the "Download SQL Server 2012 Express" button and you will get multiple choices. All you actually need is the database engine itself, which is the option named "SQL Server Express (Containing only the database engine)". With that, you can create databases within Visual Studio as part of your projects. That said, I would suggest choosing the option named "SQL Server Express with Tools (with LocalDB, Includes the database engine and SQL Server Management Studio Express)". That will also allow you to create databases in SQL Server Management Studio that are not part of any particular VS project. That's good for messing about with just database stuff or creating a database that can be accessed by multiple applications and even from other machines.

 

[psonawane89]

Hey
jmcilhinney
Thanks for your reply>! So I should download that product which is of size 669.9 MB?

 

[jmcilhinney]

I don't know what the sizes are but, as I said, I would recommend the one that includes Management Studio but, if you don't think you need that, you can download the one that contains just the database engine. You can always download Management Studio alone from that same place later if needs be.