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Is it possible to use a SQL Server database, i.e. a .mdf file, without having to install SQL Server (Express)?

marc_s
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Erik Z
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  • You could convert it to SQLite: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/959711/convert-sql-server-mdf-file-into-sqlite-file as that is embeddable. – Ian Mercer Sep 29 '15 at 15:07

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No you cannot use .mdf file without installing SQL Server on your system. However, there are some open source projects which you might be interested to look in like OrcaMDF which you can use to read the SQL server data files without the usage of SQL Server installation.

Rahul Tripathi
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