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I’m setting up a new development server and want to install the latest version of SQL Server 2008 Express.
Will our existing sql2005 databases work with 2008 without modification? If so is there any reason to install both versions on the same server?
I haven’t actually tried migrating a 2005 database to 2008, but generally SQL handles this cleanly and without difficulty. The simplest way to do it would be to make a backup of your database from SQL 2005 and then restore that backup with SQL 2008.
If you want to keep the SQL 2005 copy around and online until you know that the 2008 copy is working, you might need to move the data/log files for your database when restoring the backup onto 2008, since the old data files will be in use by 2005. You can do this using the
with moveoption ofrestore database, for example:RESTORE DATABASE mydb FROM disk = 'c:\backupfile.bak'WITH MOVE 'maindatafile' to 'c:\newdatalocation.mdf',
MOVE 'mainlogfile' to 'c:\newloglocation.ldf'
As to having both installed at the same time, one reason you might decide to do this would be to simplify the job of testing code against both versions, if you were intending to have your software support talking to both versions.