SQL Compare 8.2 released

SQL Compare 8.2 has been released. (10 May 2010)

8.2 is a maintenance release that fixes the following issues in SQL Compare 8.1:

SC-4252 Trailing comma when removing schemabinding from encrypted objects
SC-4514 Add support for the "View Change Tracking" user right in SQL Server 2008
SC-4531 Windows Hot Keys
SC-4528 Script doesn't enable change tracking
SC-4539 Next button in Sync Wizard step 1 can stop working
SC-4558 Changing data source back to original project setting doesn't update project ('OK' instead of 'Compare Now')
SC-4556 Issue where the shared projects folder and the default filters folder are not persisted
SC-4540 Poor peformance when entering network share server location for comparison results report
SC-4521 Command Line: Paser Errors don't get displayed.
SC-4563 Dependencies not shown if only difference is with extended properties.
SC-4576 Customer requests Interactive HTML report to be viewable with no internet connection
SC-4579 NullReferenceException when extended property is set on database
SC-4594 Command line didn't allow synching and creating migration script at same time
SC-4596 WITH ENCRYPTION option creates invalid syntax when using a table variable called @Return
SC-4598 Confusing filter results
SC-4615 Identity seed not preserved accross table rebuild
SC-4477 Cannot change comparison report Name

Plus: An issue with the commandline where include:identical was case sensitive

To get this update, please use 'check for updates' within the tool.

Alternatively, you can use the following link:
ftp://support.red-gate.com/patches/SQL_ ... 2.0.16.zip

If you have found this page by following a link to a support patch, then the fix is included in this fully tested release.

July 2009
SQL Compare 8.1 has been released. This is a minor update, including project sharing with SQL Data Compare, command line refinements, and bug fixes.

SQL Compare 8.1 introduces the following features:

• The ability to share projects with SQL Data Compare
To open a SQL Compare project in SQL Data Compare, on the Projects dialog box, select a project, right click, and click Launch in SQL Data Compare.

• Command line changes
There are some changes to the command line syntax

• Support for static data in scripts folders
SQL Data Compare 8.0 introduces the ability to store static data in scripts folders. SQL Compare 8.1 can parse these data scripts. Version 8.0 and earlier cannot parse INSERT statements in scripts folders, and therefore displays error messages when comparing data scripts.

Note that SQL Compare cannot create data scripts in scripts folders.

For more detailed information, see: SQL Compare release notes

SQL Compare 8.0 release notes (Tue Feb 24, 2009)

SQL Compare 8.0 has been released and is available for download. This is a major update to SQL Compare, providing fine grained object filtering, improvements to working with scripts folder support, and many usability improvements. This release also delivers numerous bug fixes and minor enhancements.

Key changes:

• Filtering rules: SQL Compare 8.0 introduces fine-grained filtering of database objects, and you can now build highly expressive rules to filter out objects with a specific schema, or objects that have a particular prefix. For example, it is now easy to exclude from the comparison result stored procedures that belong to the “marketing” schema and have the “dev_” or “tmp_” prefix.

• Project selection and project saving: After a great deal of usability testing and research we have changed the way projects are saved. You now have the ability to explicitly save comparison projects, without having to perform a comparison. The project files are also now easier to locate and share.

• Error reporting for scripts folders: In SQL Compare Pro version 6 we introduced the ability to compare and synchronize against SQL creation scripts. Some people had extra SQL statements in their creation scripts that were intentionally not considered by SQL Compare. Examples included drop statements and certain alter statements. SQL Compare now provides detailed information on what statements are ignored, and provides warnings about which branches of conditional statements are being chosen.

• Handling target scripts as live databases: Prior versions of SQL Compare Pro could synchronize differences to creation scripts. However, as of this version, SQL Compare can also provide a migration script as well. This feature can be used to quickly generate change script for the differences between any two versions of a database schema when the target schema is stored as a set of creation scripts (for example it is stored in source control).

• Backup before synchronization: Many customers requested the ability to take a database backup automatically before synchronization. This feature is now part of SQL Compare, and you can choose between a native SQL Server backup, a SQL Compare schema snapshot, or a compressed/encrypted backup with Red Gate SQL Backup if available.

• Improved the way we display find results by showing database objects that match as well as objects that do not match a find request.

• SQL Snapper is a separate free download that generates SQL Compare snapshots that work with SQL Compare 7.0 or later. Download this from http://labs.red-gate.com

SQL Compare 8.0 also includes some bug fixes, including:

• Improved dependency resolving, including dependencies between defaults and their referenced functions

• Extended properties of certain data types being inconsistent between the live database and script folders

• Many improvements to schema mappings

February 2009
You can find out more about the differences between version 7 and version 8 in this article:

http://www.red-gate.com/supportcenter/C ... w_In_8.htm