Visual Studio 2010 and SQL Server 2012 server explorer integration

9th Mar 2012

SQL Server 2012 Express is now available to download from this link.

After downloading it and installing it, I tried to integrate it into an existing project in Visual Studio through the Server Explorer, and got the following issue:

This server version is not supported. Only servers up to Microsoft SQL Server 2008 are supported

This is apparently a known issue, and happens when you right click on "Data Connections" in Server Explorer, and chose "Create New SQL Server Database".

The workaround:

The work around is to create your database using Management Studio (Just the DB, not the actual schema).

Once it has been created, you can then "connect" to the database in Visual Studio's Server Explorer:

Server Explorer Data Connections Add Connection

This will allow you to connect to the database created in Management Studio without any issues.

If you didn't change it during installation, your instance name will be ".\SQLEXPRESS".