How to migrate SDF database to Sql Server

Umbraco’s site installation comes with an SDF database. For obvious reasons, I needed to migrate this to SQL Server. Below are the steps I took to make it work.

Before proceeding to the steps below, you will need to install following:

• ExportSqlCE40.exe which you can download from here
• SQL Server Compact 4.0 Runtime from here

Steps to migrate:

1. Navigate to the file system where your SDF file is
2. Copy/Paste the ExportSqlCE40.exe into the same folder
3. Open a command prompt and change directory to the same folder above
4. Run the following command:
   ExportSqlCE40.exe "data source=INSERTDBNAMEHERE.sdf" database.sql
5. You will then see a new file database.sql
6. Open SQL Server Management Studio > Create a new database
7. Run the database.sql against the new database you just created

🙂