This is the direct download link: dbdesc 4.0 (beta)

It will automatically upgrade any previous version of dbdesc.

Please go to the download page to get the new version. The installer will automatically upgrade any previous version installed.

As always, this is a free update for registered customers.

Now you can type:

dbdesc SqlServer -Ls

It will output all the SQL Server instances visible from your computer. Also you can use -Ld to list the databases stored in a server:

dbdesc SqlServer -S Server1 -Ld

I’ve also changed the code to discover SQL Server instances on the network. The old one used a special ODBC network call which sometimes was unable to discover some servers. Now I’m using the .NET 2.0 API that should work much better.

As always, this is a free update for registered customers. Simply download and run the new installer and it will update any previous version of dbdesc.

dbdesc 3.1

Even though dbdesc supports SQL Server 2008 since RC0, it was not able to document CREATE TABLE scripts. Finally dbdesc is able to pick the latest SMO version and produce those scripts. If you try to document a SQL 2008 database from a machine without SQL Server 2008 you’ll need to install this component from Microsoft: Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Management Objects. If this component is not available, the database will be documented just fine but table scripts will be missing.

dtsdoc 1.2.4

When using Data Driven Query Tasks or a Data Pump Tasks, you can apply some transformations to the data. The usual transformations are copying columns and running an ActiveX script. However there are others like ReadFile, WriteFile, UpperCaseString, and others. These transformations happen to have its own custom properties, and previous versions of dtsdoc were not documenting them.

This version also shows the package names of a server sorted alphabetically. You could do that before simply by clicking the list header, but an anonymous user asked why there were not sorted this way in the first place. Very true.

The ‘Microsoft.Jet.OLEDB.4.0′ provider is not registered on the local machine.

Last month I released a dbdesc version for 64-bit OS. It had some third-party libraries (read Firebird) targeting 64-bit.

When you target ‘Any CPU’ in a .NET application your app will be loaded using the “native” platform of the system. In XP/Vista 64 it will be loaded as a 64 bit application, which means that it expects to load 64 libraries. It cannot load a 32 bit-only libraries like the Microsoft Jet Engine. That’s the same reason why I needed to update the Firebird libraries to the 64-bit version and generate a new installer for dbdesc.

The solution is now clear. Dbdesc has to target the x86 platform. This way, I don’t need to use special 64-bit build of any third-party library and the same code will run fine on both 32 and 64 bit OS. For a relative small app like dbdesc, there’s no visible performance loss.

So, dbdesc 3.0.2 is out. This time just one installer; no matter which OS you run.

Great!

Also some minor bugs got fixed in this version.

I’ve added the link on the download page.

The answer is yes, dbdesc works just fine with SQL Server 2008 RC0 and even documents the new data types.

There is however a small issue… it won’t script tables. The current version of SMO does not support SQL Server 2008 databases and even though there is a workaround using DMO, I prefer to wait until the RTM version.

This new version comes with two major new features and several improvements:

• Support for MySQL 5.0 databases
• A Table Dependency Matrix is automatically generated which makes very easy to “see” the relationships between tables

Additionally, your credentials and database lists are now stored per server, which means less typing when documenting databases in different servers.

The extended properties editor has been improved too. Now it allows you to add descriptions to foreign key constraints, users and roles.

As usual, all these improvements are free for registered customers.

Download dbdesc 3.0 now

Please note that dbdesc 3.0 requires .NET Framework 2.0. I think that .NET 2.0 is widely spread now so it shouldn’t be a problem for anyone. I’ll be supporting dbdesc 2.2 too (which runs with .NET 1.1), even though no new features will be added, just bug fixes.

“I am a fan of simple tools which work well and save me a lot of time. Two of my “new best friends” are Logica2′s sister programs dtsdoc, which documents SQL Server DTS packages, and dbdesc, which documents SQL Server schemas. The documentation is complete and generated quickly, and both programs have found a lasting place in my SQL Server toolkit.”

The article is a very good introduction to both products. Thanks Richard for the positive comments.

The first one addresses a common scenario: Your database has hundreds of tables, views and stored procedures. You need to provide the database documentation to someone (a developer team, a client, etc.) but she only needs to know about part of your database. So you manually select and deselect individual objects and generate the documentation. So far so good.

The problem here is that chances are that you’ll need to generate that documentation for her in the future, what means that you’ll need to select and deselect those same objects again. Not fun.

Dbdesc 2.2 allows you to save object selections, as many as you need. To save the current selection, just give it a name. Saved selections show up right in the advanced form.

Another main new feature, that I hope will improve in upcoming versions, it’s the ability to customize the internal report. As you know, dbdesc has two report engines. One of them is based on XSL templates which allow you to fully control the contents, design and format of the documentation. The other one is a third-party report component which generates nice reports ready to be printed.

Until now, using the report component, you could choose only between three different style sheets to change the appearance of the report and they were limited, basically, to change font colors. Now, dbdesc includes a style sheet editor that will allow you to modify not only the colors of the report but to change the cover page, include you company logo, change the headers and footers, modify fonts, etc. Hopefully this will help you match the style of these reports to your corporate look and feel.

This version includes more features and improvements that you can check in the change log.

As always, I’ll appreciate any comments or suggestions. Please send me your comments.