How can I get started? I have a lot of questions.

Doom 21 Reputation points
2021-09-12T11:54:20.717+00:00

Hey Microsoft Community,

I have some questions about SQL servers and about creating databases. So I have a program in Visual Basic where you can make accounts (Username, E-Mail, and Password) and a currency called points. I need all of this info to be saved onto an online database that I can access and that I can edit. At first, I was thinking about storing everything onto an excel document on a private website but it didn't work. I work with Visual Basic 2010 Enterprise and I have the next questions:
1. How can I create my own database/SQL server at home (on a personal device such as my own pc, not on a website or someone's servers)
2. How can I make my program store the data automatically from the users and how to save them so they can be accessed for account login
3. How can I link the program to that database and how the program and I can access it and edit the data.

Please help me with this, I searched all over youtube and other tech sites and I couldn't find anything useful for my situation. Thanks and God bless y'all!

VB
VB
An object-oriented programming language developed by Microsoft that is implemented on the .NET Framework. Previously known as Visual Basic .NET.
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  1. Karen Payne MVP 35,196 Reputation points
    2021-09-12T14:31:10.153+00:00

    To create a SQL-Server database use SSMS (SQL-Server Management Studio).

    Store data automatically, look at using Entity Framework (Core 5 for targeting .NET 5) and reverse engineering the database table(s) followed by implementing INotifyPropertyChanged.

    For editing an online database without using Azure, create a local application either web or desktop to make all changes to the online database.

    To get an idea about reverse engineering see the following which is not web but will apply to web with some effort on you. It's based on NuGet package EntityFrameworkCore.VisualBasic.

    So the above provides starters for working through your questions. I have not one code sample for the above, all my work is done in C# but do write code samples on GitHub and Microsoft pages.

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  2. Sam of Simple Samples 5,516 Reputation points
    2021-09-13T07:34:39.053+00:00

    Karen is correct that SQL Server and Entity Framework are what professionals use. You should learn Entity Framework; it is worth spending the time but it does take time.

    SQLite is a free database that might be more appropriate for you than SQL Server. It is already in your Windows system if you are using a current version of Windows 10 or 11. See Using SQLite in C#/VB.Net - CodeProject; I do not know anything about that article but a quick look indicates to me it would help. You can probably get started with that. That article does not use Entity Framework but you can use EF with SQLite. There are many other articles about SQLite, even many in the Microsoft documentation.

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  3. Castorix31 81,831 Reputation points
    2021-09-13T07:48:08.137+00:00
    1. How can I create my own database/SQL server at home (on a personal device such as my own pc, not on a website or someone's servers)
    2. How can I make my program store the data automatically from the users and how to save them so they can be accessed for account login
    3. How can I link the program to that database and how the program and I can access it and edit the data.

    You can use Microsoft® SQL Server® Compact
    (MSDN doc : SQL Server Compact Books Online Home Page
    I used it in a Freeware and it is very efficient and easy to deploy (just a few DLLs embedded inside the .exe)
    (I used SQLite before too, but I had freezes with too complex SQL queries)

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