Do I stand a chance of being sucessful?

I'm basically a newbie; I understand the concepts of basic computer
management, databases, networks, and programming. But, I'm not experienced
in Sequel or MSDE.
I'm helping a friend who recently purchased a small service business (a
sports gym) that manages all the membership details using software that uses
MSDE. The current club management software is about 4 years old, it's
limping along without too many problems. The company that wrote the
software didn't survive the .com implosion, so I have very little
information on the product nor anyone to ask.
If his server was to die, he'd be SOL. I want to start 'backing up' the
data in a format I can use to import into potential replacement software (I
have no way to recreate the existing environment).
Is this possible? Without any information on the database (names,
passwords, field, layout, etc), is it possible to create a flat file that
contains the basic membership data (names, address, status, membership type,
etc). (the existing software does not have this capability) I'm assuming
that the future software will allow me to import such a file. I this too
big of a task for a newbie?
Thanks for your time in advance...
It is definitely doable. You need some very basic knowledge on SQL
Server/MSDE. MSDE is a free version of SQL Server, so your problem is MSDE
does not come with a GUI tool. However, armed with basic SQL Server/MSDE
knowledge, you can use Access to connect to MSDE (either *.mdb or *.adp
file), and to view/modify/export data in the said MSDE database.
"The Dodger" <someone@.somewhere.com> wrote in message
news:%23EVc37K4FHA.2352@.TK2MSFTNGP12.phx.gbl...
> I'm basically a newbie; I understand the concepts of basic computer
> management, databases, networks, and programming. But, I'm not
> experienced in Sequel or MSDE.
> I'm helping a friend who recently purchased a small service business (a
> sports gym) that manages all the membership details using software that
> uses MSDE. The current club management software is about 4 years old,
> it's limping along without too many problems. The company that wrote the
> software didn't survive the .com implosion, so I have very little
> information on the product nor anyone to ask.
> If his server was to die, he'd be SOL. I want to start 'backing up' the
> data in a format I can use to import into potential replacement software
> (I have no way to recreate the existing environment).
> Is this possible? Without any information on the database (names,
> passwords, field, layout, etc), is it possible to create a flat file that
> contains the basic membership data (names, address, status, membership
> type, etc). (the existing software does not have this capability) I'm
> assuming that the future software will allow me to import such a file. I
> this too big of a task for a newbie?
> Thanks for your time in advance...
>
>
sql

Do I need to shrink my database?

Hello,

I have SQL Server Server Man Studio Express 2005, currently having a problem with an auto populated field.

Basically I have a webpage that when I create a new item it populates a new ID, which is the primary key and read only when I go into the database backend so i cannot manually change this.

When I have been doing some testing adding fields to the table and deleting this has obviously given me new ID's such as 113, 114 etc. But on my live site I need these ID's to be sequential, so on my live site the last ID is 108, but now when I add another item the ID is 115 because the number between this and 108 have been taken up.

So my question is really do I need to shrink my database or files to take this down to 109, if so is database shrink or file the best to do? Also i have had someone add a new live item and this has been assigned 113, would I need to delete this, shrink and then re-enter?

Any suggestions would be greatley appreciated.

Many thanks.

shrinking a database does not effect IDENTITY values, you need to look at the following

DBCC CHECKIDENT (Transact-SQL)

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms176057.aspx

you could also look at running a SET IDENTITY INSERT ON;

and then updating the ID values manually to your desired values.

Derek

|||

Thank you very much for you reply. Guess I need to run a query on something like the follwoing from the link you sent:

USE Assets;
GO
DBCC CHECKIDENT ('Assets.ID', RESEED, 30);
GO

But how do you specific which row to replace?

Also how does the SET IDENTITY INSERT ON command work, sorry quite new to SQL.

|||

the easiest way for you to do this (assuming you have some form of consistency to your IDs) would be to run the following code:

SET IDENTITY_INSERT dbo.Table ON

GO

UPDATE dbo.Table SET ID = ID -30 --this is the consistency I am referring to, if your IDs are all over the place it going to not be fun lol

GO

SET IDENTITY_INSERT dbo.Table OFF

|||

You cannot use IDENTITY column if you want to ensure no gaps in the values. For example, if a particular transaction rolls back an insert then the generated identity value will be consumed and a subsequent insert will get the next higher value. If you want guaranteed sequential numbers generation then you need to do it using a sequence table yourself.

Please take a look at the link below for an implementation that shows how to use sequence table.

http://blogs.msdn.com/sqlcat/archive/2006/04/10/572848.aspx

|||Thank you for your help I have now sorted the problem. Much appreciated.