Is SQL Server Compact 3.5 Supported?

[Wayne]

Running Q1 2011 and Visual Studio 2008, when I attempt to use the Wizard to form a query, a popup informs me that "Specified method is not supported" (and no other information.) Execute Query works properly in the Query Builder dialog, as does Test Connection from Add Connection.

Is there a work around, or, if not, what would be the recommendation regarding a different db?

[Peter]

Hello Wayne,

The problem you are experiencing is caused by a known bug in SQL Server Compact. In case you are interested, you can read more about this here: BUG: Error message when you try to obtain schema information from a SQL Server 2005 Compact Edition database or a SQL Server 2005 Mobile Edition database by using the SqlCeConnection.GetSchema method: "NotSupportedException".

Please, note that the SqlDataSource component tries to access the database in a database-agnostic and provider-agnostic way. There is no specific code related to SQL Server Compact. For this reason we need to examine certain capabilities of the current database/provider by calling the GetSchema method once, however SQL Server Compact does not support this.

Our recommendation to overcome this problem is to implement your own database access business logic and use the ObjectDataSource component instead. Since you know which database/provider you are working with, you can code directly against it, without the need to examine its capabilities with the GetSchema method.

Generally the SqlDataSource component works with SQL Server Compact 4.0.

All the best,
Peter
the Telerik team