Is it possible to open a .mdf database file created in Visual Studio with some external SQL server IDE like Quest Toad for SQL server? Databases created in Visual Studio are rather similar to simple Access databases in that they’re a single file.
It appears external IDE’s like Toad can’t see the .mdf being served by my localhost’s SQL server instance under MYMACHINE\SQLEXPRESS – I assume because these files are only served within Visual Studio with the .Net framework provider for SQL server, so my local sql server instance doesn’t serve these files. Is that the case? Is there some way to access these databases locally outside of Visual Studio?
Thanks in advance!
What you are seeing are user instances. Sql Express only loads those upon request with a special connection string. It is possible to use Sql Management Studio Express in combination with the SSETool to load an instance so you can management more details