Home Products VistaDB 2.1 Getting Started

2.1 is no longer sold or supported - these pages are for reference purposes only. VistaDB 3.x should be used for all new development.

VistaDB 2.1 Getting Started

See also: Your first VistaDB application, Sample Code

This Getting Started section requires no coding and was designed to provide a quick overview of what VistaDB can do for you without getting too technical.

1. Download and Install VistaDB
2. Migrate Northwind.MDB to .VDB format
3. Use Data Builder with Northwind.VDB
4. Work with your data
5. Free 2-User VistaDB Server is included!

After reading this page, go to Your first VistaDB application to learn how to create an application that uses VistaDB.

1. Download and Install VistaDB

To get started, make sure you have the latest version of VistaDB. If you are new to VistaDB, please download one of our Free 30-day Trials. It's fast and easy. Simply enter your valid email address and you will receive an email with download instructions. No files are sent and the download files are all under 10MB. Registered customers can download the latest version of VistaDB from downloads.

After downloading one of the VistaDB installation files (VistaDB????_*.EXE) , run it to install. By default, VistaDB will be installed to C:\Program Files\VistaDB 2.1.

2. Migrate an existing database (Northwind.MDB)

To quickly see VistaDB in action, lets migrate an existing database to VistaDB. The Data Migration Wizard (DMW) allows you to migrate data from Jet/Access, Xbase, SQL Server, Xbase and other formats to the VistaDB .VDB format. The icon should be available on your desktop, or you can run DMW from C:\Program Files\VistaDB 2.1\Tools\Data Migration\DataMigrationWizard.exe

Note: If you wish to migrate databases that require Borland's BDE (i.e. Paradox or InterBase), then you will need to download our free BDE Migration Wizard from our downloads page. The BDE Migration Wizard expects that you have the BDE already installed on your computer.

Steps to migrate Northwind.mdb to Northwind.vdb

1. Run Data Migration Wizard (DMW)
2. From the DMW, click Next until you reach step 4 of 9
3. Browse and open the Northwind.mdb database located here:
4. C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office\Samples\Northwind.mdb
   (If you do not have this file, you can download it from our downloads page)
5. Set the Target database to C:\Temp\Northwind.VDB or to some directory that is convenient. Remember which directory you selected!
6. Click Next and press OK on the Database Login form to reach Step 5
7. Click Next to the end of the wizard and the database should be migrated to VistaDB .VDB format in less than 10 seconds
8. On Step 9 of 9, the last screen, click the "View Database" button to open and view the new Northwind.VDB database using VistaDB's Data Builder utility.

3. Use Data Builder with Northwind.VDB

Northwind.VDB in Data Builder

In the previous step, you should have pressed the "View Database" button to open the new Northwind.VDB database and Data Builder should have launched automatically and opened your database. If you did not do this, simply browse to C:\Temp (or to the directory you selected in step 5 above) and double click on the Northwind.VDB file. This will launch Data Builder and open the database.

4. Work with your data

With the Northwind.VDB database file opened, try the following:

Running SQL-92 commands

1. Click on SQL, which is the first treelist item.
2. In the SQL Expression editor box, enter this statement then press F5:
     SELECT * FROM invoices WHERE quantity > 100
3. This will display the result set in the Data Grid tab.
4. Click on the Results tab (beside Data Grid) to see how many rows were returned and how long the SQL statement took to execute.
5. Try the following SQL statement and press F5:
     SELECT * FROM customers INNER JOIN invoices ON
     (customers.customerid = invoices.customerid) WHERE quantity > 100
6. After you see the results of step 4, press F6 (History) to display the history of your SQL statements. This history windows makes working with interactive V-SQL very efficient.

Working with the Schema

1. Click on Invoices in the treelist
2. Right-click on Invoices and select "Restructure Table" from the popup menu. You can also select this option from the main menu (7th button from the left)
3. Click on the Column Details tab to see the attributes of each individual column.

5. Free 2-User VistaDB Server is included!

A free copy of the 2-User Edition of the VistaDB Server is included in all products, so there is nothing to download separately. This is a full featured product that may be used to build true client/server applications that support up to 2 concurrent users and it may be deployed freely. The VistaDB Server is ideal for improving the performance of VistaDB applications running on shared network environments, LANs or for letting your VistaDB desktop applications access data remotely over TCP/IP. By default, the 2-User VistaDB Server is installed and running as a Windows Service. Learn more