15.2. Configuring Your Database

Before you can run any data access code, you need a database server to take your command. Although there are dozens of good options, all of which work equally well with ADO.NET (and require essentially the same code), a significant majority of ASP.NET applications use Microsoft SQL Server.

This chapter includes code that works with SQL Server 7 or later, although you can easily adapt the code to work with other database products. Ideally you'll use SQL Server 2005 (with Service Pack 2) or SQL Server 2008. Microsoft is phasing out older versions, and they don't have support for Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008.

If you don't have a full version of SQL Server, there's no need to worry—you can simply install ...

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