Problem/Summary

Connecting/Restoring SQL Server Express Databases onto our Windows Shared Servers

Cause

Unfortunately SQL Express was designed for development purposes and was never intended for a production environment.

Resolution

So we do not support this on our Windows Hosting Servers. You could work around this by installing Visual Studio 2005 on your own Dedicated Server, however this would work out more expensive.

You can convert your SQL express database to our hosted SQL2005 server quite easily.
First open your website solution in Visual Studio 2005 IDE.
Find the Server Explorer. Right click your SQL Express database and select New Query. Close the Add Table window if it pops up.
In the Text Area clear the "SELECT FROM" and insert the following query:

BACKUP DATABASE [C:\Documents and Settings\YourWindowsUser\My Documents\Visual Studio 2005\WebSites\WebSite1\App_Data\TestDB.mdf] TO DISK = "c:\mybackup1.bak"

Change the paths to point to your database location and backup output location.
Press the Execute SQL(CTRL R) to run the query.
If the Query Definitions Differ window appears, click Continue.
They query should Execute Successfully and the backup file should appear in the location specified.

Now you can zip this .bak file and upload it to your /db folder of your site.
Now login to the control panel (http://cp.wadns.net or http://cp.glodns.net) and navigate to the Database Manager for your domain.
Select you Microsoft SQL Server 2005 or create a new one if you have not got one.
In the Restore Database Function, select the zip file you uploaded earlier and click Restore Backup.

If you have not created Database Users, now is good time to do this while you"re still in the control panel.
Now you can replace your connection strings in your web.config file to point to the hosted SQL database.
You can also add this new Database to your Website Solution in the Server Explorer, right click the Data Connections and select Add Connection.

For the Server Name enter sql#.domainname,1444(for SA) or sql#.domainname,1444(for US) and select "Use SQL Server Authentication", enter your database username and password and select your database.

You can now modify the database through the Visual Studio IDE.