Architecture Question

[Jay1b]

Hi

 

I'm fairly new to using 2005, both VB and SQL Server Express. I'm trying to create a program which talks to a database on a server for my friends business (big favour!). His company has about 7 people that work there and each of them will have a copy of the VB app installed which will interface with the database.

 

Personally i have quite a bit of experience with standalone VB apps, but i've never really approached anything of this size before, but I'm trying doing this as a) a favour to my friend and b) to learn VB and Sequel a little better as i'm looking to change my job in a few months time.

 

There are no full time IT staff there, any backups will need to be either done automatically or by an office administrator with limited IT skills.

 

I'm not sure how true this is, and i've had no luck proving or disproving it by searching the web. But I heard a rumour that VB 2005 can create and access a 'file' SQL Server 2005 database, which consists of some files, with no installed software or running services. Could somebody please clarify whether this is correct or not?

 

Also I would be very grateful if anybody could make any recommendations upon how they think I should setup the database, with regards to 'file' or running, or backup options etc. Well really any comments at all would be very helpful.

 

Thanks for reading this.

 

Jamie.