Make Changes to Published Database

Vince,
are you making changes through the GUI (SSMS)? It sounds like you are, but
you'll need to use ALTER TABLE instead (see
http://www.replicationanswers.com/AlterSchema2005.asp).
Cheers,
Paul Ibison SQL Server MVP, www.replicationanswers.com .
Yes, I am using the SSMS gui. It is really the only thing I feel safe
working with.
I read your post and that is the exact error I get when trying to make
changes to my published tables. I may have bitten off more than I can chew
with this. I guess my real question/problem/concern is this:
Let's say I have 500+ subscribers and they all have between 25 and 50 MB of
data in their local store (SQLce). At some point I will want to make
changes to my program which require new fields, field name changes, new
tables, etc. From what I am encountering I have to go into the SSMS gui,
delete the publication and all subscriptions and then make changes to my
tables. At this point all the users still have their data in their local
SQLce file; this is what I want so far. However, when I recreate my
publication on the central server and the subscribers go to synchronize what
will happen? I assume it will not find the subscription on the server. So,
will the user be required to delete the file and start over with a new
initialization or can I just add that subscription back to the central
server and just propogate only the changes to the subscribers? What about
changes that the subscriber makes to their local SQLce file during the time
that I removed the publication and then recreated it?
I understand I can do this stuff using scripts and stored procedures, etc.,
but I have zero experience with that and I am kind of afraid to mess with
anything other than the SSMS gui when I have this in production.
I am only a programmer not a dba. I understand
indexing/relationships/tables/field types and so on, but TSQL is foreign to
me. Thanks in advance for your patience.
Vince
"Paul Ibison" <Paul.Ibison@.Pygmalion.Com> wrote in message
news:eGC7XcgKHHA.4460@.TK2MSFTNGP03.phx.gbl...
> Vince,
> are you making changes through the GUI (SSMS)? It sounds like you are, but
> you'll need to use ALTER TABLE instead (see
> http://www.replicationanswers.com/AlterSchema2005.asp).
> Cheers,
> Paul Ibison SQL Server MVP, www.replicationanswers.com .
>
|||Vincent,
you really don't want to reinitialize for all schema changes. If you are
confortable with the SSMS gui, then by all means use that to add articles.
To chnage an existing article, just study ALTER TABLE in BOL - as you're a
programmer, this will be easy to pick up.
Cheers,
Paul Ibison SQL Server MVP, www.replicationanswers.com .