Using a Custom Database with MSDE

When MSDE setup is completed successfully on target machines, only the following databases will be available with MSDE:

•	master
•	model
•	msdb
•	tempdb

Once you have redistributed the custom database (.mdf) file onto the target machine as shown in step 4 of the "Manual Setup" section above, you can then apply any of the following approaches:

•	Run the stored procedure "sp_attach_db" to attach your database to MSDE as follows: EXEC sp_attach_db @dbname = N'dbname', @filename = N'filepath\filename.mdf' EXEC sp_attach_db 'Test', 'c:\Mssql7\Data\Test.mdf'
•	Use the Microsoft OLEDB Provider for SQL Server to attach the .mdf database file and connect to the database directly. In this case, the connection string should resemble the following: "Provider = SQLOLEDB.1; User ID = your_user_id; Password = your_password;Initial Catalog = db_name; Data Source = server_name; Initial File Name = db_file_path\db_file_name.mdf"
•	Use the Microsoft OLEDB Provider for SQL Server to point to the local MSDE. In this case, the connection string should resemble the following: "Provider = SQLOLEDB.1; User ID = your_user_id; Password = your_password; Initial Catalog = db_name; Data Source = (local)"
•	Use the Microsoft OLEDB Provider for ODBC drivers (MSDASQL) to connect to MSDE. You can create a DSN on each target machine or use a DSN-less connection NOTE: The third and fourth approaches above require attaching the database prior to using the connection string(s).
•	You can optionally use SQL-DMO to start MSDE, attach or/and detach your custom database to MSDE.