Knowledge Base

Backing up and restoring on SQL Server Express Edition

Category: How do I?
Date: 14 Jul 2009
Product: SQL Backup
Versions: 3-6
Platforms: SQL Server 2005/2008 Express

SQL Server Express Edition is a free, cut-down version of SQL Server for small installations. SQL Backup can be used to back up and restore databases hosted on this edition of SQL Server.

SQL Backup can back up and restore SQL Server Express databases in the same way that it can on a fully-featured SQL Server 2005 platform. There is only one missing bit of functionality in SQL Server Express that could normally be used on a full SQL Server version, and that is the SQL Server Agent, which SQL Backup uses to schedule backup jobs to run on a regular basis.

It is still possible to schedule backups using the command-line utility, SQLBACKUPc.exe.

The first step is to use the SQL Backup backup wizard to construct a backup script for the database that you want to schedule backups for. At the end of this wizard, you may choose either the extended stored procedure version of the script or the command-line version. Choose the command-line version and highlight the contents, then press CTRL-C. Next, open a notepad document (start->run->notepad.exe) and paste the contents of the backup script using CTRL-V. Save this script.

Now go to your Windows Control Panel and locate 'scheduled tasks'. Open this folder, right-click inside and create a new scheduled task. Following the steps in the task wizard, run the script that you had created using SQL Backup at the intervals that you desire.

Please note that the above issue would make it impossible to use SQL Backup's log shipping wizard on SQL Server 2005 Express Edition. Using command scripts created by-hand, however, it would be possible to set up log shipping jobs manually.