justI'm getting this error message when trying to add a new connection in VS 2008 Server Explorer. Unfortunately I'm working in a PC that my client company gave me, and I need to ask permissions to install new software there. This PC has VS 2008 and a pretty old Sql Server version(2000 for what I can see). I used to think VS doesnt need an additional SQLServer install just to connect, but I guess I was wrong...I want to develop an app that connects to SQL Server 2008, and after testing connection it prompts the error mentioned above. Is there a way to connect succesfully without installing a newer Sql Server version on my side? Please, if there is no way to do it, just answer no and let me know, thanks in advance.
As Visual Studio 2008 was released before SQL Server 2008, the development environment database tools were coded without knowing about SQL Server 2008.
However, since these versions of Visual Studio were released before SQL Server 2008, the design-time tools cannot interact with SQL Server 2008 - even though it is possible to programmatically access the data in a SQL Server 2008 database from applications written with Visual Studio 2008 or 2005
Source: Connecting to Microsoft SQL Server 2008 from Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 and 2008
Luckily, Microsoft did release a patch for both Visual Studio 2005 and Visual Studio 2008, which is also referenced in the article (to save you reading the whole thing, for Visual Studio 2008, you need to install Visual Studio 2008 Service Pack 1)