MSDE Manager Editor's Review

With MSDE Manager you can manage your databases in an intuitive and user friendly way. The program is intended for use with Microsoft SQL Server (97 and 2000), MSDE (97 and 2000) and SQL Express (2005). Its user interface looks very good. You can choose to use a ribbon toolbar which is nicely designed and in my opinion provides better functionality. Each SQL Server connection can be associated to a group. This way when you have multiple servers to manage, your task becomes easier.

You have access to all the components of a database: tables, views, stored procedures, functions, rules, users and roles. You can add, modify or delete all of the above. The interface also provides easy access to server logs, security settings and current activity information. The user can perform all kinds of management tasks like database backup and restore, error checking, index rebuilding and constraint verification.

This software is designed for people who are familiar with Enterprise Manager. Enterprise Manager is part of the SQL Server tools that Microsoft ships with SQL Server 2005. There is a free version of this server (Express version) available for downloading on Microsoft's website and its database management utility is called "Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio Express". You should really try this one as well.

Pluses:

Drawbacks / flaws: It's clear that the program doesn't use multiple threads to access the data. This makes the program rather unstable during long operations. The user interface stops responding quite often.

In conclusion: Nice looks, nice structure, rather poor performance.

version reviewed: 4.6.4