>>>>I'm not the one to ask when it comes to MS SQL - maybe someone else will jump in.
>>>>But FWIW I'd probably look at shipping the mdfs and attaching them to the server instance - but I've *no* idea whether that's a good option :-{
>>>>I'd be interested to know how you end up doing this tho.
>
>Well... so far I've learned a bunch. And some of this is smoother than I thought.
>
>Setup will not install the SQL Express 2005 prerequisite if SQL Express 2008 is already installed.
>
>Entity Framework does not balk if you try and run a 2005 project on a 2008 server.

I thought you'd be fairly safe there - it's the opposite (i.e 2008 project on 2005 server) that might cause a problem. But, assuming there are no *real* problems with datatypes etc then just changing the ProviderManifestToken works)

>I thought I would have a problem with the 2005 SMO DLLs on 2008 and did not.
>
>So much data out there from the RC phases of 2008 it's hard do sort out fact from fiction.
>
>I'm anticipating running into non standard instance names and users privilege problems. But at this point, I think I can deal with those as they occur.
>

Will you be using SQL or Windows log ins (or both) ?

>Still trying to decide on distributing the MDFs or just running a script. I'll need to run scripts for upgrades, so I have to have that capability in any case.

How big is the database ?

>I also haven't decided on using SMO, Process.Start(sqlcmd), or breaking the SQL on the "GO" words and using the normal ExecuteNonQuery.
>
>If anyone has any feed back on those I'd love to hear it.

As before, I'll pretty much be a spectator on this thread - but interested in what you find/decide,
Best,
Viv