SQL Server 2008 Edition Comparison for Windows Forms Developers

As I am studying right now for my MCPD Upgrade Windows Forms 3.5, I was trying to get my head around a lot of the different ways of storing data for Windows Forms. One of the things that struck me was SQL Server 2008 Express Edition and SQL Server 2008 Compact Edition and the features of each.

These two products are used a lot in developing self contained or occasionally connected Windows Forms applications that require a persisted data store.

Unless you are familiar with the two products it can be quite hard to get a good overview of the pros and cons of each.

So a quick overview for people doing Windows Forms development.

	SQL Server 2008 Express Edition	SQL Server 2008 Compact Edition
LINQ Support	Yes	Yes
Stored Procedures, Triggers, View	Yes	No
Merge Replication	Yes (subscriber only)	Yes (subscriber only)
Install with MSI	Yes	Yes
Embedded install	No	Yes

You can get a full overview of these two editions here and an overview of the edition features of the other editions of SQL Server 2008 here