Overview of Visual Database Tools

By accessing Visual Database Tools from your development environment, you can help create and manage data-driven applications. For example, you can use these tools to create, view, and modify the tables, structure, queries, and views in a database.

Note

You can use these tools to update databases in SQL Server 2005, SQL Server 2008, and SQL Server 2008 R2. However, not all features are available in SQL Server 2012 or other database-management systems. For example, you can’t create diagrams for databases in SQL Server 2012. See Visual Database Tools Editions.

In This Section

• Visual Database Tools Editions
  Lists which features are available in Visual Studio Express and other editions of Visual Studio.

• Work You Can Do With the Visual Database Tools
  Lists the kinds of tasks that you can accomplish and which tool to use.

Reference

• Reference (Visual Database Tools)
  Acts as a parent node for topics that explain each dialog box and property that you'll encounter when you use Visual Database Tools.

Related Sections

• Understanding Visual Database Tools
  Provides an overview of the tools included and how to manage large database projects.

• Creating and Managing Databases and Data-tier Applications in Visual Studio
  Provides information about how you can manage changes to your database or server by using database projects, server projects, and data-tier application projects.