SQL Server compact 3.5 beta2 released

SQL Server compact 3.5 beta2 and synchronization services for ADO. NET are included in Visual Studio 2008 beta2 released last week. They will be installed on your computer along with Visual Studio 2008 beta2. However, due to the progress, Visual Studio 2008 beta2 does not include their books online. You need to download and install them separately:

Server compact 3.5 books online for orcas beta 2
Synchronization services for ADO. net books online beta 2

Today, Microsoft released an independent installation package for SQL Server compact 3.5 beta2, which consists of Windows desktop and Windows Mobile.

SQL Server compact 3.5 for Windows desktop beta 2
SQL Server compact 3.5 for Windows Mobile beta 2
SQL Server compact 3.5 replication server tools

The installation package for Windows desktop contains synchronization services for ADO. net. Unfortunately, the synchronization services for ADO. Net of Windows Mobile has not yet come out, and the exact work plan has just been determined. According to Steve Lasker's reply, SQL Server compact 3.5 RTM does not have synchronization services for ADO. Net for Windows Mobile. It is estimated that SQL Server compact 3.5 SP1 will be released with SQL Server 2008 at that time.

In addition, Visual Studio 2005 currently does not support visual design of SQL Server compact 3.5, which is supported in Visual Studio 2008.

New Features of SQL Server compact 3.5 include:
· LINQ to SQL enabling developers to integrate data access directly into their code
· Ithe timestamp (rowversion) data type. rowversion is a data type that exposes automatically generated binary numbers, which are guaranteed to be unique in a database. it is used typically as a mechanism for version-stamping table rows.
· Supports local transaction scope on a desktop and tablet PC.
· Table designer in Visual Studio 2008 has been enhanced to provide a user interface for creating primary key and foreign key relationships between tables.
· Support for Transact-SQL statements has been extended as follows:
· Nested query in select from clause
· Cross apply and outer apply
· Cast
· Top
· Supports data replication with SQL Server 2005 by using Microsoft synchronization services for ADO. net. synchronization services is available for desktop and tablet PCs only.
· Can be used for developing SQL Server compact 3.5 desktop and tablet PC applications by using Visual C #2008 express edition and Visual Basic 2008 express edition.
· Can be installed side-by-side with the previous version on desktop and tablet PC computers. using SQL Server compact 3.5, you can open database files (*. SDF) created in the previous version (3.1 ). be aware that when a database file is opened in SQL Server compact 3.5, the file is updated to 3.5. you will no longer be able to open the database by using the 3.1 version. databases created by using SQL Server compact 3.5 cannot be opened by earlier versions of SQL Server compact 3.5.

Refer:
SQL Server compact 3.5 B2 & sync services for ADO. Net documentation released
SQL Server compact 3.5 B2 released
SQL Server compact 3.5 B2 books online