Build Data-centric Windows Forms Apps. without MS SQL Server or MS Access Databases

Tutorial Steps:
Setup MSDE 2000 for Developers using VS.NET

1. Install MSDE 2002 for VS.NET Developers if it's not already installed.
2. The MSDE 2002 for VS.NET Developers installation creates an SQL Server 2000 instance service called MSSQL$VSDOTNET where VSDOTNET is the name of the instance.
3. Check to make sure the VSDOTNET instance is started by running sqlmangr.exe. If it's not, start it.
   

Create MSDE tables and populating them with data
4. Open up VS.NET and create a new Windows Application project called MSDEWinFormApp.
5. Open up the Server Explorer by going to View menu list.

Creating an MSDE 2000 Database

6. Expand the Servers node then expand the name of the computer then expand the SQL Servers node then expand the MSDE-installed instance (in the form computer_name\instance_name).
   
7. Right-click on the VSDOTNET instance and choose New Database.
8. Enter MSDEWinFormApp as the database name and choose Windows NT Integrated Security.
9. Expand the MSDEWinFormApp database node in the Server Explorer then expand the Tables node.
10. Right-click on the Tables node then choose New Table.
11. For the first row of the Column Name column enter FirstName and set the Data Type to varchar and the Length to 64.
12. Do the same for the second row but call the field LastName.
    
13. Press [Ctrl]+[S] to save the table.
14. Enter tblMyNames for the table name then click on OK.
15. In the Server Explorer right-click on the tblMyNames table and choose Retrieve Data from Table.
16. Start entering random names of people you know or have heard of in the grid (I entered Bill Gates, Steve Ballmer and Coby Briant).

Creating a Typed Dataset

17. From the Project menu choose Add New Item then choose Data Set.
18. Called the Data Set dsNames.xsd.
19. Go the Server Explorer the drag-and-drop the tblMyNames table onto the dsNames.xsd design window.
    
20. Press [Ctrl]+[Shift]+[S] to save all of the project files.

Adding controls to the Windows Form

21. Open up Form1.cs from the Solution Explorer window.
22. Drag-and-drop a DataGrid and Button control from the Toolbox window to Form1.cs.
    
23. Set the button's (Button1) Text property to Fill DataGrid with Names.
24. Right-click on Form1.cs in the Solution Explorer window and choose View Code.
25. Go to the very top of the code window and enter the following: using System.Data; using System.Data.SqlClient;
26. Open up the Form1.cs form again from the Solution Explorer window.
27. Double-click on the button (Button1) to create a Click event handler.
28. In the code window type in the following code: // replace the underline below with the name f your computer: SqlConnection sqlConn = new SqlConnection("Data Source=____\\VSDOTNET; " + "Integrated Security=SSPI; Initial Catalog=MSDEWinFormApp"); try { SqlDataAdapter sqlAdp = new SqlDataAdapter("SELECT * FROM tblMyNames", sqlConn); dsNames ds = new dsNames(); sqlAdp.Fill(ds, "tblMyNames"); sqlAdp.Dispose(); dataGrid1.DataSource = ds.tblMyNames; } catch (Exception err) { MessageBox.Show(err.Message + "\r\n" + err.StackTrace); } finally { sqlConn.Close(); sqlConn.Dispose(); }

That's it - now its time to test the application:

29. Press the [F5] key to debug your application.
30. Click on the button on the form to fill the DataGrid with the data of names.