Your dad needs to install the SQL server, period. Moreover, even though deployment of database service with the application is the acceptable practice, it all heavily depends on licensing models, actually available licenses and maybe business setting. Therefore, the choice #1 is still just claiming the prerequisites for the software product being distributed.
Think by yourself: 1) your customer may already have the required database management system installed; 2) some customers may have licenses, while others may plan to obtain one and have to decide what to use, depending not only your application, but a set of other applications; 3) some customer may have a commercial version of the database management system, but other can install a version based on free-of-charge license, while both options could be suitable for using your product, 4) and so on… If you enforce installing some particular version of a 3rd-party product which comes with your product, it could compromise this flexibility. That's why prerequisite-based approach is better for many cases.
You can read about deployment of each particular database server in manufacturer's documentation. On SQL server, please see:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh699753.aspx[
^],
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb522540%28v=sql.105%29.aspx[
^],
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms165716%28v=sql.105%29.aspx[
^],
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg213826%28v=sql.110%29.aspx[
^], and so on.
Best regards to your dad and my respect. Collaboration between family members can be very productive and can even create the condition for creation of best quality work. This is because the best work is done by those who care and understand.
—SA
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