SQL Compare^®

Yes. SQL Compare has been designed to work with the very largest commercial databases (e.g. SAP in Fortune 100 companies). For example, we've successfully tested the SQL Bundle on databases of 100s of GB in size, with 150,000+ database objects.

The latest version of SQL Compare is version 7.1. If you are a new user, you can download it and try it out for 14 days. If you are a current customer, you can upgrade to the latest version, by performing a Check for Updates from the Help menu of the program.

Red Gate's SQL Compare works only with Microsoft SQL Server 2000, 2005 and 2008.

To find out how much it will cost to upgrade to the latest version, please see our page about upgrading.

You can run SQL Compare 5, 6 and 7 in parallel.

Again, this is possible. Please contact us for further information.

By visiting the relevant licensing page on this website, you can read full license details.

To redistribute the SQL Compare command line tool with your applications, you must purchase a SQL Comparison SDK license.

The activation server looks for the XML data in the activation request. HTML formatted emails make it difficult for the activation server to locate the activation request in the message, and when it's not found, the server simply gives up and discards the email. To prevent this, always ensure that activation requests via email are in plain-text format rather than HTML.

SQL Compare has been completely reengineered to make the most of SQL Server 2005. You can compare and synchronize all SQL Server 2005 objects including: XML schema collections, CLR Assemblies, DDL Triggers, Message types, Contracts, Services, Routes, Event notifications, Queues, Synonyms, Partition functions, Partition schemes, Service binding, Certificate (partial support), Symmetric key (partial support) Asymmetric key (partial support), and New datatypes (e.g. varchar(MAX)). It has also been engineered to support all the new features in SQL Server 2008. If you browse our developer blogs, you'll get an idea about what a wonderful feat of engineering this has been.

You can use the Comparison -> Options menu and make sure that the Ignore Comments is checked.

Go to the Comparison -> Options menu and make sure Force table column order is not checked.

Go to the Comparison -> Options menu and make sure Ignore collation order is checked.

Yes. Simply use the filter panel to set up the filters as you wish. Notice that objects that you filter from the grid will not be synchronized.

The comparison screen simply shows the scripts for the objects as they are defined and where they differ. Even if you have chosen to ignore comments, the comments will still be shown, and you will see these differences.

SQL Compare lets you create snapshots of databases for offline comparison. Create a snapshot of the first database by going to the File -> Create database snapshot option, and then compare this against the live database by using the More button on the comparison settings dialog.

Microsoft has improved its encryption standards.

In most circumstances changes will be rolled back if, for whatever reason, a script fails. There are, however, some circumstances in which this is not possible:

• Full text information cannot be altered inside a transaction. For example, catalogs cannot be dropped, or indexing added to a column.
• Users and roles cannot be created, dropped or altered inside a transaction. For example, a user cannot be created or added to a role.
• If you have chosen not to include transactional plumbing, then SQL Compare will not attempt to use transactions. See SQL Compare options for more details.

Note that, in the first two cases, SQL Compare will roll back all the changes that it can, but your database will be in an undetermined state and you will need to run another comparison.

SQL Compare will always warn you if it was unable to roll back changes.

You can export the results to a HTML or EXCEL format by using the appropriate file choice in the Menu under Tools -> Export Comparison Results.

If you have databases with binary sort order then you should use the Treat items as case sensitive option. Note that this is not a setting you should change frequently. In particular, if you are comparing an offline database snapshot (.snp) file with another snapshot or live database, and the case sensitive option has changed, then SQL Compare may give unexpected errors.

Under some circumstances (for example, when restoring a database from a backup) the full text catalogs for a database are in an invalid state. You should rebuild them from the SQL Enterprise Manager or Management Studio before running SQL Compare.

No, it will not. It will, however, preserve the formatting of textual objects, like stored procedures, functions and views.

Yes. You can set these in the Tools -> Application Options... menu.

Yes. SQL Compare 7.0 Pro will read in the schema from any number of files and determines the dependency order automatically.

No. SQL Compare will blank this file, and remove the object definition, together with unnecessary GO statements. The file is not deleted on purpose, so that source control systems do not consider the file to be missing, and do not retrieve the latest version, and thus reversing the database object deletion.

You must have SQL Compare 7 Pro for this.

Yes. If a database schema has become inconsistent due to the use of sp_rename, and a stored procedure or a function definition refers to a different name from what is in the system tables, SQL Compare 7 automatically fixes these inconsistencies.

SQL Compare Pro Edition includes SQL Changeset for integrating with source control systems. SQL Changeset works with VSS-style source control (checkin / edit / checkout) to make it simpler and easier to get latest version and list appropriate files for checking out and checking in. For further information about known issues with certain packages, see the SQL Changeset section of the online supportcenter.

Some login info is stored in the master database. This is not part of database backups. If you are running SQL Compare in a Windows domain that is not the same domain as where the backup was made the login info cannot be accurately retrieved.