如何在我权限有限的远程Win7系统上还原.bak文件？

Question

We have an old project which is planned for an upgrade, and now as a seed, we took the backup of the whole database which is in a remote location. I saved it in my remote desktop, which I have limited permissions. I tried to use SQL Server Management Studio 2008 R2, but as there are no database in the newly created (remote) system, I cannot actually right click on the databases and restore the .BAK file.

Is there any other software, or any other method I can use to restore the file? I am guessing this is a pretty small work, but because of the complexity in permissions and connectivity, it's messed up. I cannot even compare to another blogs, I feel this is unique. Please suggest a workaround.

ps., I have no clue which SQL Server version they used to create that backup. The new system does not have Visual Studio, or anything else, but the SQL Server Management Studio 2008 R2 Express x64 version.

Answer 1

If you can get the appropriate permissions to install SQL Server then SQL Server 2012 Express should do for restoring the database and reading from it, provided the database has less than 10GB of data.

SQL Server 2008 R2 Express has a limit of 10GB of data, too. Earlier versions permit less data.

Don't confuse a backup file that's less than 10GB as having less than 10GB of data. Backup files can be compressed.

You should be aware of the limitations of SQL Server Express if you are going to use it beyond reading some data from the restored database, it may not be suitable for all workloads.

SQL Server 2012 LocalDB might also do the trick in a low privileges/lots of hoops to jump through environment, although it requires Administrator permissions when it's being installed. Note that it still has similar limitations to the Express editions, make sure you understand these limitations before using it in production.