>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?

Yes! An excellent set of tools and replication that actually works.

If not compact, I'd go Express to get even better reliability, security, scalability, connectivity, stored procedures and functions, and reporting services. Still free. 10Gig limit.


>
>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