I am looking for a solution to this current problem.
I bought SQL Server 2008 R2 Developer last year because it has both SSAS and SSIS. It seamlessly integrates with Visual Studio 2010 Professional in terms of connecting to a data source, however VS 2010 Pro is a trial version.
My experience last year was that the Express versions of Visual Studio do not offer as many connection possibilities as the Professional version in terms of connections (i.e. this required some manual connection string coding on my part whilst the Professional
version did not). The problem is that in the Change Data Source part of it one can only select "Microsoft SQL Server Database File". In the Professional edition I can link to "Microsoft SQL Server" (which means I do not have to make any
adjustments) and not "Microsoft SQL Server Database File". I went through a whole post on this last year and we came to the conclusion that it was necessary to install the Professional version of Visual Studio otherwise I would have to go through
manual coding.
There is an option to install SQL Server 2008 Express SP1 with Visual Studio 2010 Express although I am not sure if this would cause a conflict with my existing SQL Server 2008 R2 Developer edition or even resolve this problem...
Therefore I am looking to keep SQL Server 2008 R2 Developer but use Visual Studio 2010 Express without getting into manual coding to link to an .mdf database (i.e. I'm not going through this again and need an option for the actual Server and not the database
file (which does not seem to work...). Is this possible?
