With the release of Service Pack 2, SQL Server 2005 finally has full support on Vista. This includes SQL Server Express, which had serious difficulties running on the new operating system. Several new features are also included in this release. Other changes include:
- Maintenance plans now work in multi-server environments with support for logging into remote servers.
- A new data format, vardecimal, can be used to reduce the space needed to store numeric and decimal columns. This option can be set at the table or database level and does not require code changes.
- SQL Server Integration Services has added support for Access 2007 and Excel 2007 data sources.
- SQL Server Reporting Services now supports Oracle 9.2.0.3 and later.
A new version of the SQL Server Feature Pack is also available.
InfoQ Asks: Does your company plan to run SQL Server on the Vista operating system?