<AaronSprague/>

Problem: You need to change production data from a database.

Solution: Use Transations.

Its always scary working with live data I found that I feel more confident when I take the following measures.

Do a Select first to check the where clause:

SELECT * FROM Foo WHERE FooID = 1000

Wrap your changes in a Transaction and roll it back if you did not get the expected result.

Begin Transaction
  DELETE FROM Foo WHERE FooID = 1000
IF @@RowCount <> 1 BEGIN
  Rollback Transaction
END
ELSE
  Commit Transaction

Problem: You try to open a .mdf file in visual studio and you get one of the following errors.

Connections to SQL Server files (*.mdf) require SQL Server Express 2005 to function properly.  Please verify the installation of the component or download from the URL:  http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=49251

Failed to generate a user instance of SQL Server due to a failure in starting the process for the user instance. The connection will be closed.

Solution: Open Server Explorer add Data Connection. Make sure the Data Source = Microsoft SQL Server Database File (SqlClient) and browse to the .mdf file located in your source directory(There maybe on located in the bin directory but this will get copied over by what is in src on a build). Click the Advance button. In order to work I needed to switch the Data Source to .\SQLEXPRESS2005 (This will be different for each computer).

Final connection string should look something like this:

Data Source=.\SQLEXPRESS2005;AttachDbFilename=|DataDirectory|\NerdDinner.mdf;Integrated Security=True;Connect Timeout=30;User Instance=True