>If only MSDE is free, then you can always use Access 2000 to manage the database.<

Now there's a project for you John, since you have so much spare time < bg >, write a MSDE Manager. All the stuff you need is in SQL-DMO.

Just for fun I tried using MSDE instead of SQL in a BizTalk Server 2000 installation since you can't get past the first step without SQL 7 (and VB) installed. BizTalk couldn't build the database automatically during the install but it accepted MSDE as a SQL Server and running the SQL scripts manually was successful.