>coming in late:
>
>>From a contrarian POV, on top of the benefits of only having to chuck a coiuple of DLLs into the deployment:
>
>Again - even easier with SQLIte: no need for Dotnet if you don't insist on C# ;-)

But the thread is specificially about which DB to use in a *small .NET application* and in that light CE deserves serious consideration.
I've used the same entity model to go against the same database on CE, SQL Express and SQL2008. Nothing to change except to connection string. That gives customers a lot of flexibility.

>>You can use the Compact edition with the ADO.NET support for EF and Linq (native providers not OLDEB)
>Should be possible at least with the C# version, but haven't verified
>
>>You can use SSMS to create/manage CE databases.
>So ?
>
>>IIRC replicating to a main SQL server is supported?
>Would be a biggie if needed - which I interpret as not in Marks use case -
>but I have jumped to false assupmtions before.
>
>
>>
>>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 ?
>>
>
>I understood his use case to be a non-connected desktop -
>and fior this neither a full blown express makes sense nor staying inside the MS fold just for kicks -
>SQLite being used almost on every device is a big pro in my book.