In a previous chapter, I described the installation process for SQL Server 2012 Express which included all the bells and whistles of the advanced services package. While it’s great to have all the tools at your disposal to learn from, some people might not want such a large installation on a particular machine or the administration that goes with it but might still want the basic database capabilities of SQL Server on their desktop. In this case, SQL Server 2012 offers a new edition called LocalDB.
LocalDB is a minimized version of SQL Server Express specifically for developers who still need all the programming features including the ability to create stored procedures and other objects within an instance of SQL Server. It has a few restrictions that the average beginner probably won’t be bothered by and you can connect to it with SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) or other tools to create and manage databases. You can even install the AdventureWorks sample database to work with through an instance of LocalDB.
In this article, I’ll describe the process of installing both LocalDB and SSMS in order to create a small desktop database environment to work with as a developer or a beginner in database design.