From a contrarian POV, on top of the benefits of only having to chuck a coiuple of DLLs into the deployment:

You can use the Compact edition with the ADO.NET support for EF and Linq (native providers not OLDEB)
You can use SSMS to create/manage CE databases.
IIRC replicating to a main SQL server is supported?

Admitted downsides:
4GB database limit
No Stored Procs.
No nested transactions ?

But unlikely that any of the latter would be a show-stopper for Mark ?

>SQLIte can be just copied over as well, accessing it *might* need an install -
>depends on the way you want to do it. C# has it's own version, should be installfree as well
>BUT the big benefit is instant portability to almost every other language / dev system on almost any platform.
>
>compact has only syntax "nearness" to MS-SQL - from my POV a no brainer ;-)
>
>have fun
>
>thomas
>
>
>>Thanks for all the help, multi user is not an issue so i'm going to go with either sqlite or compact. i like that compact does not need an install when distribution, not sure if sqlite does but going to get to grips with it over the coming days.
>>~M
>>
>>>>Hi all,
>>>>
>>>>I was going to start writing a few small applications in .Net and was wondering about a good desktop database. I'd rather not use VFP just from an experience point of view. What I'd like to do is write a small application to record the name and personal details of people using a .Net (c#) front with a database behind it that is deployable on any desktop windows xp or vista onwards.
>>>>
>>>If you want multiuser access across the network, use the MS-SQL free express -
>>>you won't run into the size limit of 10GB from the above and for Dotnet it has the best support in VS.
>>>The free versions of Oracle and especially DB2 have less restirction AFAIR
>>>but you will find more help for MS-SQL directly in Dotnet circles.
>>>If you consider to learn a totally OS DB, I'd pick PostGreSQL over MySQL
>>>
>>>If is deployable on any desktop windows xp or vista onwards.
>>>is meant as a database for each single PC, no concurrent C/S access,
>>>go for SQLite, probably the most installed ebedded DB,
>>>but multiuser access there is less sophisticated than even vfp -
>>>it is MEANT as the local datastore on a particular machine (Thunderbird, Firefox...).
>>>
>>>Also promises portability of the data file even down to mobile devices.
>>>
>>>my 0.02 EUR
>>>
>>>thomas