SQL Server 2005 to 2008 upgrade - are MDF files binary compatible?

Posted by james on Server Fault See other posts from Server Fault or by james
Published on 2010-03-18T03:10:52Z Indexed on 2010/03/18 3:11 UTC
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I have 50 databases on a MS SQL Server 2005 system and want to upgrade to MS SQL Server 2008.

This is what I tried on some test machines:
1. copied the \DATA directory from the source (MSSQL 2005) to exactly the same path on the target (MSSQL 2008) server.
2. edited the startup parameters on the MSSQL 2008 service to point to the path of the MSSQL 2005 master database.
3. restarted MSSQL service

It worked and I can access all databases, tables and data.

My questions are:
I go back to SQL Server 4.2 and it has never been this easy. I know it worked, but should have it worked?

Am I missing something, or is there going to be a gotcha next week? These are simple databases, with just tables, views and indexes. No cross database links, no triggers etc

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