SQL Local Network Connection String

Question

I am rather new to Database developing, and I am building a simple one to track Work Hours for our small company. Now that my program is done, I need to find a way to hook the Connection String on the Database that is located in a folder within the Local Network Server.

I am building a C# application which uses a SqlConnection.

My Database is a LocalDB, .mdf file.

How the program works:

• Users install the program on their computers locally with the Setup.msi file
• The program connects to the Local Server to access the Database (the drive letter depends on the PC. This is what's bugging me since I can give an absolute path)

Right now my Connection String looks something like this:

public static string ConnectionString { get; set; } = @"Data Source=(LocalDB)\MSSQLLocalDB;AttachDbFilename=|DataDirectory|\TimeControl.mdf;Integrated Security=True;MultipleActiveResultSets=True;";

But this is no good as I was only using this during the actual programming for debugging purposes.

Is there a simple way to make it so that everyone can connect to the DB and access it, whatever their drive letter is? A relative path of some sort.

Thanks!

Answer 1

The proper way to do this would be to create a SQL-Server. Namely a machine which has the purpose to provide database services. There you could create a database everybody can access.

For further information read here. Here you can get an overview on existing versions of Microsoft SQL Server.

Another solution would be to make the user install SQL-Express along with your application (see here). This would write all the data to the database on their own machine. I guess you want to avoid this.