Side-by-side installation

  • I have a DEV Box on which I have Windows XP Pro with SS 2000 and VS 2005 Beta 2. As client tools for SS, I have both EM/QA as well as SQL Management Studio. Both of which seem to co-exist peacefully. I can access my database with either one of them.

    I also have a TST box on which I have SS 2000 running on a Windows 2003 server. I am thinking of installing SS 2005 as a side-by-side install on it. Will they co-exist peacefully? On my DEV box, when I devlop an application in VS 2005, I connect locally to the database. Will I also need to install SS 2005 on my DEV box.

    BTW, will I gain a lot by installing SS 2005 or I am OK with SS 2000. When I migrated from VS 1.x to 2.0, I gained tremendously. There is no doubt in my mind that I could never have done so much so fast if I had stuck to VS 1.x. Is it the same with SS 2005? I am fortunate to start a new project. Should I start that in SS 2005 or should I stick to SS 2000?

  • If you are thinking of starting a new project using SQL Server 2005 and Visual Studio 2005 I would definitely recommend you to try and get a hold of the April CTP version of SQL Server 2005 instead of using Beta 2. There has been a lot of changes between the versions, both performance- and feature-wise with new stuff being added. But more importantly, some stuff have changed so that old code written for Beta 2 does not work anymore.

    Regarding side-by-side installations I am not completely sure how Beta 2 works with SS2000. However I know that SQL Server 2000 and SQL Server 2005 April CTP can coexist. Note however that you must have Visual Studio 2005 Beta 2 as well to work with April CTP.

    Finally, it is impossible for me to say whether you should use SQL Server 2000 or 2005 for your new project since I do not know anything about it, but if possible I would have gone with 2005. It depends on when your planned release is (SQL Server 2005 probably will not be released for another 6 months, give or take), if you are ok with working with beta software (you will definitely face problems with stuff not working, and with changes between different versions) etc. But there are lots of new cool stuff in SQL Server 2005, so if given the chance I would go with that.

  • I have both April CTP for SS 2005 as well as B2 for VS 2005. I have already installed the following:

    - VS 2005 Beta 2

    - .NET Framework Beta 2

    - SQL Management Studio. This is co-existing well with EM/QA. I am playing around with this to learn new features. I switch back to EM/QA whenever this give me problems.

    I hesitate to install SS 2005 for the following reasond:

    - I don't want to put too many new products in the mix as it gets too difficult to troubleshoot.

    - I gained a lot when I moved from 1.x to 2.0 in VS. Though SS 2005 has quite a few neat features, I am not too sure the gain will be comparable.

    decisions, decisions, decisions!

  • Performance-wise the product will, when it is finished of course, have lots of 'hidden' improvements that will generally increase performance. Specific features you might be able to make use of for better performance are partitioning and snapshot isolation, depending on your application and how it uses the database.

    Managability- and programmability-wise you will find lots of new features that are really good, like try/catch-syntax for T-SQL, the new Large Value Types that replace blobs and of course CLR Integration if that is suitable for some parts of your project.

  • I guess I would be more interested in Managability/Programmability. I would definately consider if I tend to gain a lot.

    Take my migration from 1.x to 2.0 for example. 2.0 has so many new controls and features such as Membership, DataSets (DataComponents in Beta 1), Master Pages, Themes, etc., that it is impossible to ignore them. I sometimes wonder how I lived without them. Maybe SS 2005 has lots of goodies for me to ignore.

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