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Editorial Team
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Asked: 2026-05-17T17:44:14+00:00

I usually create a solution folder in Visual Studio and put my DB scripts

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I usually create a solution folder in Visual Studio and put my DB scripts in them. I always use at least this set of scripts:

  1. Drop model
  2. Create model script
  3. User functions
  4. Stored procedures
  5. Static data (lookup tables)
  6. Test data (not deployed)

Then I simply combine them and run against an SQL Server so I’m able to recreate the whole DB in a single step (by combining these scripts into a single one and executing it).

Anyway. I’ve never used projects in either:

  • Visual Studio or
  • SQL Management Studio

I’ve tried creating SQL Server 2008 Database Project in Visual Studio 2010, but I’m somehow overwhelmed by all the possible server settings (which I prefer to stay default as set on the server anyway). So I’m a bit confused: Should I use this project template or should I just do the same thing I always did?

What do you use and why? What are advantages I may benefit from by using either?

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  1. Editorial Team

    If I were you I would continue to do it the way you are doing it. In fact I do! The advantages of having the actual .sql files right there in a folder for you to use/edit/look at in my opinion are far better than the advantages you get by using a DB project. DB Project would be used if you were doing something like Storage Reports, were you have to communicate with like 8 databases and compare then to 8 different databases and save result sets etc… Now don’t get my wrong there are advantages of Database Projects, I just don’t think they are actually doing much help when you have such a simple setup that works already.

    Advantages of the SQL Server 2008 Database Project in VS10:

    • Not having to switch back and forth
      from your current client you use to
      communicate with your SQL server.
    • Decent Data and Schema compare tools.
    • Gives you a one-click way to reverse
      engineer a database into source
      control, and keep it up to date.
    • You can compare projects to physical
      databases and vice-versa. (This makes it pretty easy to keep your database up to date, no matter where you make change it: file system database project, or in the physical database itself)
    • If the current tool your using is not specifically tailored to SQL Server, this one is.
    • Extremely helpful if you need to do
      unit tests directly on the database
      without using abstractions.
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