Hello Everybody.

I am currently writing my own setup/install routine. Mostly because it’s a very complex installation and I don't know how and if this can be done with the free install shield version.

In this vb.net application, one part handles the SQL setup. For this, the program needs to:

collect all installed SQL instances on the network

test connection string

create a new database, table, views, UDF, and Database User

list existing Databases and their tables
Currently I accomplish this via the SMO namespace. It works great!

However, it only works great on my development machine because SMO is installed here through an SQL installation.

The installation must be able to do all this without having to install an SQL (or express) instance.

So, here are my questions:

how to install "only" SMO manually?

is there an alternative and/or a better way to accomplish the above tasks?

As always I truly appreciate your help!