Desktop App connection to data base

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Hey guys, very important question comming up:
in the last year i developed a desktop application in winforms that help the user to organize his bills and money. the software, as said, written in winforms and the database was ms access (because not all of the users are using sql server on there personal computers).
Now, i want to upgrade my software. for start, i want to write it all down on the WPF platform but that not the main thing.
I want my software to connect to a remote database (sql server) in order to retrive data, license and updates.
this is the first time i'm trying anything like this and i would like to know how to get started.
Do i need a remote server that support windows and has sql server?
what will be the connection string?
can u please show me some code snippet?
please, this is very important to me. any tip, link, advice or code will help! :-)

Posted 28-Dec-15 11:06am

oronsultan

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Sergey Alexandrovich Kryukov 28-Dec-15 17:30pm

Snippet of what? It all depends on what you are using and where. You need to understand what "SQL server" means. It's itself a server.
Are you familiar with ADO.NET? What's the problem?
—SA

oronsultan 29-Dec-15 0:45am

hey sergey, nice talking to u again.
it seems like you angry :-(
please let me explain my self regarding to your reply.
you said "It all depends on what you are using and where"... i'm not sure i understand you. like i said before, i'm using visual studio 2015 and c# (i'm guessing winforms / wpf is not relevant for now). regarding to the "where", i didn't understand you...
Now, i know SQL server Its itself is a server but you need to understand that i didn't try thing like this before and i'm looking for guidance. i'm asking if i need to purchase a remote desktop server with sql server included and if so, how can i connect to it from my home computer. again, please understand i'm new to this method. looking forward to here from you soon :-)
BTW, please look into the answer i wrote to RyandDev below.

Sergey Alexandrovich Kryukov 29-Dec-15 2:12am

Angry? With what? Even if you did something wrong (and I don't think so, as you are asking legitimate questions, perhaps not quite precise), it would not be a problem for anyone but yourself.
By "what and where" I meant exactly the SQL server and its address. You already got a good advice to check with ConnectionStrings.com. No, you don't need to purchase any other server to use the SQL server.

Perhaps your confusion is based on (I just looked through some comments below) your experience with Access. I can imagine how this experience can be traumatizing for a beginner. :-) This thingy lacks even such rudimentary and insufficient element as client-server model. I would not advise anyone to take this product seriously and especially to start with it.

Short answer is: use ADO.NET.

—SA

oronsultan 29-Dec-15 2:15am

what u r saying is that an sql server on my personal computer would be enough? user could connect to this sql server and retrieve data? another thing, what if i want the sql server to be on a remote desktop? than what i will have to do?

Sergey Alexandrovich Kryukov 29-Dec-15 2:25am

You need to read SQL server documentation...
Come one... remote desktop?.. First, you already have it; second, why?!
—SA

oronsultan 29-Dec-15 2:29am

is it ok to allow users to connect to my personal desktop? just to be clear, that it is what you saying, right?

Sinisa Hajnal 29-Dec-15 3:13am

No, he is saying you COULD do it that way. You could also purchase a domain on godaddy or any other provider that comes with the database. MS Azure comes to mind too. Of course, these are all paid (inexpensive) services.

Homero Rivera 28-Dec-15 18:08pm

I want my software to connect to a remote database (sql server) in order to retrieve data, license and updates. this is the first time i'm trying anything like this and i would like to know how to get started.

Do i need a remote server that support windows and has sql server?

If you want to use SQL Server, yes.
Your application could still connect to other databases hosted on other operating systems though. The fact that the app runs on WPF doesn't restrict the data sources to Microsft.
There are windows apps that connect to Oracle, or MySQL and others.

what will be the connection string?
ConnectionStrings.com look for the database server you're using.

ZurdoDev 28-Dec-15 20:23pm

If you were already using MSAccess then, if you use ADO.Net correctly, all you have to do is change your connection string to point to Sql instead of MSAccess. Some of your SQL syntax may need to change but hopefully that's not in your C# code anyway.

oronsultan 29-Dec-15 0:52am

Dear Ryan,
thanks for your reply. yes, i am using using ms access but that is only for the client side. the user will hold an ms access database on his personal computer, saving all his information. But on the server side i want to use a remote desktop with sql server that will keep all of the software information, eg: how many users do i have (when user install the software it will connect to the sql server and register), how many users are connected at the moment, what will be the access level for this user, updates, upgrades (pro / free version), Notification and so on. regarding to the syntax, while using ms access, the queries written inside the code (c#) but when i use sql server, all of the sql code will be written in stored procedure obviously. any advice on how to proceed? what will be my next step?

Sinisa Hajnal 29-Dec-15 3:17am

If you use SQL Server, move away from Access and local storage. Instead, have everything transferred to SQL Server and require that users work online (they already have to because of your licencing model). When they login, they get their ID and you can write all data into table with that ID. That way you have all users data at one place (of course, it is your burden to keep backups then)

oronsultan 29-Dec-15 3:25am

Dear Sinisa, you are absolutely right! that is exactly my intention (killing ms access and handling one database for all users using sql server) but i am trying to find out the answer on how to get started. Some of the answers were not detailed enough. saying i don't want the database to be on my personal pc rather on a remote desktop. what am i suppose to do? do i need to acquire a remote server (e.g "GoDaddy"?)? what do i need to have on the remote server? sql server would be enough? how can i get access to this data base and so on...

ZurdoDev 29-Dec-15 7:17am

You didn't answer the most important part. How are you accessing the MSAccess data? Using ADO.Net? If so, all you have to do is change the connection string.

Install SQL server somewhere, then change the connection string in your config file to point to sql server. That's it.

oronsultan 29-Dec-15 7:46am

Ryan, yes i am using ADO.Net. assuming i will go through the security issue smooth, i will have no problem changing the connectionString but the problem, as you described, is the "somewhere". assuming i don't want to use sql server installed on my personal computer (i really don't, but if you see any advantage please say) and i want to use "GoDaddy" for example, what server will i need to acquire, what sql server would i be needed to have(express will be enough?) and how is the connection String will look like?

ZurdoDev 29-Dec-15 8:04am

If you want to use GoDaddy then you have to talk to them about what your options are. However, GoDaddy is for websites. But you tagged this as WPF so you don't have a website.

If you want your database in the cloud then use Azure. https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/ Visual Studio can connect to Azure. It's a copy of SQL server running on Microsoft Servers.

However, if this is for your office only, for example, then you just need Sql (probably even sqlexpress) running on a single computer.

To get the connection string you can either use the wizards in Visual Studio or refer to http://www.connectionstrings.com/.

To be honest, I think you are making this much more complicated than it is which is why we are having a hard time helping you. It's hard to understand what your actual question is. They seem a little too vague to know for sure.

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Sergey Alexandrovich Kryukov · Answer 1 · 2015-12-28T20:29:00

Solution 1

Please see my comment to the questions with the notes on SQL server and Access. See also:
Microsoft Access - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[^],
Client–server model - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[^],
Pull technology - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[^],
SQL Server - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[^].

It's possible that experience with Access gave you wrong impression on what "real" database tools should do. The database tool lacking event the client-server model hardly can form a clear vision of database technology.

You don't need any other server to access an SQL server. As to connection strings, you already got a good advice from Homero Rivera to use ConnectionStrings.com - Forgot that connection string? Get it here![^].

The quick advice would be: use ADO.NET, learn it:
ADO.NET - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[^],
ADO.NET[^].

This CodeProject article will help you to get started in no time: Using ADO.NET for beginners[^].

—SA

Posted 28-Dec-15 20:29pm

Sergey Alexandrovich Kryukov

Comments

oronsultan 29-Dec-15 3:16am

Dear sergey, please accept my apologies but i think we have not reached a common understanding regarding the question.
i'm a developer for 5 years now and familiar with the ADO pretty good. My disadvantage is my lack of knowledge in web in general and especially asp.net. the fact that i used ms access in my code dosent mean i don't know the difference between access and sql server. i appreciate your answers (as always, you are the best replier) and all i am asking is not a tutorial about ms access, client-server or sql server from wikipedia but a good guidance on how to get started with connected to a remote server. basically, you need to see it like that: if a user using the software, how can he retrieve information from a database (sql server) not install on his computer? (of course that there is a lot more than that but this question can give a good perspective on what i am trying to accomplish).
sorry for being a nudg... :-)

Sergey Alexandrovich Kryukov 29-Dec-15 3:32am

Please, no need to apologize. But please also understand me: I cannot remember who has what experience and cannot correctly evaluate it by just few comments in all cases. I acted based on my impression based on your question and comments, and some mistakes are always possible.

I still think that you did not properly explain your problems; besides, your references to remote desktop show big confusion on certain basics.

Having all that, I would say that even if you don't need to read those Wikipedia articles does not mean I should not have referenced them. You see, I almost never deal with databases, but when I did, I never had any serious problems, even though I had to solve quite serious problems. It's hard for me to understand how "not install on his computer" can be a problem. What's the difference where the database is installed? If it's installed somewhere on LAN (which is the most reasonable case; it's bad to expose it, say, directly to the Web), you can access it exactly as if it was on your own computer. It's hard to understand for me, how can you have any problems, if you say you understand SQL server usage well — it is not related even to ADO.NET. Say, Visual Studio comes with Server Explorer: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/x603htbk.aspx. But I preferred to use a small database client which usually comes with every SQL server product.

Does it answer your question?

By the way, the article on ADO.NET I referenced is very good and useful.

—SA