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Asked: 2026-05-11T18:16:28+00:00

I often want to send sample apps to friends & colleages that work with

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I often want to send sample apps to friends & colleages that work with a database.

For real projects I’d like to include something in the repository that allows people to recreate the database quickly, to avoid having to depend on server X still being there in a few years.

I’m not really good with MS SQL server management studio, so I wonder what is the easiest, quickest & cleanest process to get a MS SQL 2005+ database in a file that is also very easy to “unpack” into a real database.

The end goal is to let the other guy be able to get the database driven application working as fast as possible.

I really like is the .exe that adds the .Net membership tables to a database of your choise. Really easy to use. Are there any tools available that can do something like that?

Other option I know of is a .bak file but I don’t find that particulary easy to build/unpack. (requires too many steps like starting up sql server management studio)

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    I’m a big fan of the Microsoft SQL Server Database Publishing Wizard 1.1. This application lets you use a simple UI to select a desired database. It then converts the whole DB, both its structure AND data, into a SQL text file. The end user only needs to execute the file in an empty database to re-create everything.

    This is a nice method, because it can be used in environments where users don’t have direct access to the server to attach mdf files.

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