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can i connect to a remote SQLCe database?

I have created a VB.NET application which contains a SQL Server CE database. Now this database file works just file on my local system.

What i want is to create another VB.NET application which can connect to this SQL Server CE database file (remote connection) so that I can do insert update and view sought of things.

If this is not possible, can someone help me what is the best way to achieve my objective and what is its way forward.

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marked as duplicate by Steve, David Basarab, RobV, StaticVariable, Kate Gregory Oct 18 '12 at 20:21


If you want a shared DB it's better to use SQL Server Express (or an RDBMS that was designed for that) –  Nasreddine Oct 13 '12 at 9:25

2 Answers 2

No, it's not possible. SQL Server CE has not some kind of process that listen for incoming client requests.

You could switch to SQL Server Express easily, without any substantial change to your app, but you have the drawback to require an installation of Sql Server Express on the remote machine and all the administrative work required (firewall, permissions, database backups etc...). In alternative you could create a WCF service that, on the remote machine, listens the incoming requests of your client app, connects to its (local) SQL Server CE database and provides answers to your client app. This approach has the drawback that your client apps will require a substantial amount of changes and you cannot still avoid some kind software installation on the remote machine.

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1 up, this really opened a new path for me to google.... let me explore a bit more on your ground :) –  Django Anonymous Oct 14 '12 at 15:01

You may can only use some network share stuff so that you can remote access that file, however that's really not a good idea, or if you want to write your own dbms that listening on some port

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