I've been using MS SQL 2000 for a while but just now getting into reporting services. This books says you need Visual Studio 2003. This generates a few questions for me ...

1. I know MS SQL 2K has been out for quite a while, and I assume it always came with Reporting Services. Before Visual Studio 2003 was released, how did people go about using / developing Reporting Services?

2. If you can use Visual Studio 2002, what are the primary differences in features / tools between 2002 and 2003 concerning reporting services?

Thanks for your input,
Perry

SQL server did not come with Reporting Services which came out much later.

I believe you need VS.NET 2003, earlier versions will not work. Microsoft are planning to release a simplified report designer, it's being worked on at the moment but I don't know the release date.

Joe (MVP)

Reporting Services was released earlier this year as an addendum to SQL Server 2000. I'm afraid there is no support for report integeration prior to VS 2003. We are beginning to see third-party products to design reports. For example, Panorama software has a browser-based report designer.

Paul Turley, MCSD, MCDBA, MCT, MSF Practitioner