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I wrote a small app to learn more about SQL and experiment with Entity Framework. On first execution, my app creates the database locally, and after that opens the existing database. So far, so good - it works pretty well on my laptop, which has SQL Server 2017 installed.

I tried copying the assemblies to my desktop machine and that also worked as expected, though SQL Server was not installed.

But when I tried copying the assemblies to another laptop, the app would not run. The exception I saw was:

A network-related or instance-specific error occurred while establishing a connection to SQL Server. The Server was not found or was not accessible. Verify that the instance name is correct and that SQL Server is configured to allow remote connections. (provider: SQL Network Interfaces, error: 52 - Unable to locate a local Database Runtime Installation. Verify SQL Server Express is properly installed and that the Local Database Runtime feature is enabled.)

All machines are Windows 10. (Is it significant that the desktop machine has Visual Studio 2019 installed?)

I can't seem to find a post here which speaks to my problem. (I'm probably not phrasing my query well...)

Anyway, I don't want other users to be required to install SQL Server (Express, or otherwise). What do I need to include in my installation?

Can it be done more-or-less automatically by using ClickOnce deployment (a.k.a. Publishing Wizard)? Or do I need to build an .msi with Wix code?

Is SQLite a better option for this? Users of my app will not be sharing databases; each will have their own.

I have seen mention of SQL Server Compact Edition in this post: ASP.NET MVC - Switching from SQL Server Express to Compact Edition - Connection Issue, but when I tried to run this down, it seemed like this is no longer available from Microsoft. And I believe I'm already using SQL Server Express (looks like this is confirmed by the error message, above)...

At present I have worked around this problem by using ClickOnce deployment. In the near term, I would like to change the installation to include the dependencies (.NET & SQL runtimes) in the setup package, rather than downloading them at install-time.

But I wonder if SQLite would be a better long-term solution... One thing I have appreciated about SQLServer is that I can use SQLServer Management Studio to get at the database apart from the app, so I can validate what the app has done. I also think this is a good thing for users, as they will always have a second option for getting their data, if something goes wrong with the app.

Does SQLite provide any tool similar to SQLServer Management Studio for accessing the database?

Todd Hoatson
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  • You can use SQLite Browser to design and edit the database https://sqlitebrowser.org/ There is also a Visual Studio extension called SQLite compact toolbox that adds those features – Rosco Apr 26 '20 at 00:06

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SQLite is a better option as it is an embedded database. This means that it is a part of your application and doesn't require additional setup. It works well for storing per-user data that is not shared.

https://www.sqlite.org/whentouse.html

SQLite only requires its assemblies for deployment.

SQLite deployment for .net application

Rosco
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  • OK, I have been trying to follow this suggestion for > 2 months! (This is my side project, but still...) I can't seem to convert my code from using SQL Server to SQLite. – Todd Hoatson Jun 12 '20 at 02:21
  • I have detailed my problems in a new post: [Problems converting code from SQL Server to SQLite using reverse-engineering](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/62336910/problems-converting-code-from-sql-server-to-sqlite-using-reverse-engineering) – Todd Hoatson Jun 12 '20 at 03:17