As a part of the release of SQL Server 2005 Service Pack 1, Microsoft announced the availability of a new package of SQL Server Express called Advanced Services.  Advanced Services includes SQL Server Reporting Services and Full Text Search, along with SQL Server Management Studio Express and SQL Server Express Toolkit (used to build reports).  SQL Server Express also continues to be available without the complementary features to keep a small download package for those who require it.  For a more in-depth comparison of the versions, check out the feature comparison page to decide which version of SQL Server Express is right for you.

With the introduction of Advanced Services, professional users can scale up to create more sophisticated applications and take advantage of SQL Server’s impressive Reporting Services and Full Text Search features.  To make management easier, SQL Server Express with Advanced Services comes bundled with the new SQL Server Management Studio Express, the graphical management tool for SQL Server.  SQL Server Express Tool kit includes Connectivity Components, Business Intelligence Development Studio, Management Studio Express, and a Software Development Kit for management and report creation.

In conjunction with the release of these new SQL Server Express products, you’ll also find a lot more material for support, migration, fun projects, and learning materials targeted at a variety of audiences with varying skill levels from how-to videos for the database novice to out-of-the box starter kits for the hobbyist, to more technical whitepapers on topics like migrating to SQL Server Express from other databases and file systems.  

Download page for SQL Express

SQL Server 2005 Service Pack 1

feature comparison page 
 

The VS 2005 Web Application Project option provides an alternate web project model option to the VS 2005 Web Site Project Model that ships built-into VS 2005.  VS 2005 Web Application Projects support the same project, build and compilation semantics as the VS 2003 web project model.  Specifically:

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  All files contained within the project are defined within a project file (as well as the assembly references and other project meta-data settings).  Files under the web’s file-system root that are not defined in the project file are not considered part of the web project.

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  All code files within the project are compiled into a single assembly that is built and persisted in the \bin directory on each compile.  Incremental publishing of compiled apps is fully supported within the IDE (see this post for details).

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  The compilation system uses a standard MSBuild based compilation process.  This can be extended and customized using MSBuild extensibility rules.  You can control the build through the property pages, name the output assembly or add pre- and post-build action rules.  It can also provide much faster compile times for large web projects.

Because the VS 2005 Web Application Project model has the same conceptual semantics as the VS 2003 Web Project Model, it also makes migrating VS 2003 web projects very, very easy – with zero/minimal code changes required.  To learn how to automatically upgrade a VS 2003 web project using this option, please review these VB and C# tutorials that walkthrough the VS 2003 to VS 2005 upgrade process step-by-step.

If you want to migrate an existing VS 2005 Web Site Project to be a VS 2005 Web Application Project, please also review these other VB and C# migration tutorials that walkthrough the Web Site to Web Application conversion process step-by-step.  This article here also describes some of the differences between the VS 2005 Web Site Project Model and VS 2005 Web Application Project Model.

Note that the VS 2005 Web Application Project option is available now as a free web download.  It will also be added built-in to VS 2005 SP1, and will be fully supported with Visual Studio releases going forward.  

Read More at Scott Guthrie’s Blog