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Installing and Managing MSDE

All Orders 3.X

Before following this FAQ, please read FAQ 112 - How to Migrate NumberCruncher All Orders to MS SQL

The following FAQ will provide you with an installation utility and guidance on installing and configuring MSDE. Note: If you has MS SQL Server you do not need MSDE.

Installing

Step 1

MSDE only needs to be installed on the computer the will store your data files. It does NOT have to be installed on every user's machine.

Download and run MSDEInstallSetUp.exe. This is a self extracting file that will copy the MSDE Installation and Management Utility as well as the MSDE installation files to your machine using a default directory of C:\MSDEInstall. The MSDE installation files will be installed to sub-folder C:\MSDEInstall\MSDE.

Step 2

Close all running applications.

Using Windows Explorer navigate to C:\MSDEInstall and double click MSDEInstall.exe. You will see a screen that looks like this:

At this point you are only concerned with the Install MSDE button. If this button is disabled (grey) then MSDE is already installed and you should press Exit. If its enabled, click the button and follow the onscreen instructions.

MSDE will be installed in the sub-directory C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server. The sa password is sysadmin and the Security mode is SQL. Press Exit.

Note: At this point you have not created any databases so you should not use the Database Management buttons.

Step 3

Now that MSDE is installed you need to allow access to client machines. Navigate to sub-folder C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\80\Tools\Binn and double click SVRNETCN.exe. You will see a screen that looks like this.

Make sure that Named Pipes in Enabled. You may need to enable other protocols to use the database on an IIS server.

RESTART THIS COMPUTER TO ENSURE THAT ALL SETTING ARE PROPERLY SET.

You are now ready to create a database and transfer data from Access. Please FAQ 114 - Converting NumberCruncher data from Access to MS SQL.

Managing

You should use MSDEInstall.exe for Back up and restore procedures. When you create a database in MSDE, 2 files are created in sub-folder C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL\Data being dbname.MDF, the data file, and dbname.LDF, the log file.

Attach and Detach work together. Attach, attaches an existing MDF file to the server and Detach, does the opposite. Once a file is detached it cannot be used. You would use Attach/Detach to:

Move the database to another server
Move the database files to another hard drive or computer
Make the database unavailable

To Attach a database, pick the file using the Browse button and input the Database Name (This should autofill). To detach the database, wimply type in the Database Name.

Backup and Restore work together. You should back-up your database daily. Should you have data loss, you can quickly recover the data by using the Restore function.

Note: By default, NumberCruncher uses the Simple Recovery method. Meaning the data can only be restored from the last back-up. Other recovery methods (eg FULL or BULK) can be used which will restore from the time of the data loss based on the transaction log. You can implement FULL recovery methods yourself if you have Enterprise Manager.