SQL Compare 7.1 release notes - September 2008

This is a minor update to SQL Compare. Along with a number of bug fixes there are two principal enhancements:
• Extended support for reading encrypted stored procedures and similar objects to SQL Server 2005 and 2008. (Usual dbo user permissions are required for reading decrypted content)
• Improved schema mappings, making it easier to compare objects between different schemas

SQL Compare 7.0 release notes - July 2008

This is a major upgrade. New features include:

Support for SQL Server 2008:

SQL Compare 7.0 supports SQL Server 2008 based on the currently available release candidate. SQL Server 2008 introduces new data types (table valued types, spatial data types, temporal data types), new and enhanced statements like merge, variable initialization and sparse columns, and many other features, all of which are supported by SQL Compare 7.0.

Support for reading backup files directly:

This release of SQL Compare also includes a new Professional Edition feature which allows using database backups directly in comparisons. There is no need to restore the database before a comparison, SQL Compare can read and understand the native SQL Server backup files. This includes backups made by SQL Server 2000, 2005 and 2008 (both compressed and uncompressed backups). SQL Compare 7.0 also supports backup files that are created by Red Gate’s SQL Backup tool, including compressed and encrypted backups.

There are also many small enhancements that enable SQL Compare to compare and synchronize databases more efficiently. These include

• Full support for ALTER AUTHORIZATION statements
• Using defaults in table rebuilds for columns that no longer allow null values, but are null
• Ability to deactivate a serial number
• Improved full text index support on views
• More warnings when table rebuilds would require column drops
• New options to ignore the database part of synonyms
• Better matching triggers, constraints, and other dependent objects that help identify differences visually