In fairness, http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc645993.aspx for 2012 does show that "Direct query of indexed views (using NOEXPAND hint)" (in the RDBMS Manageability section) is not available in Express editions (though it certainly is). The 2008 R2 version (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc645993(v=sql.105).aspx) suggests at least Standard is required (i.e. not Web, Workgroup or Express) though again it does work on all 2008 R2 versions. The 2008 version (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc645993(v=sql.100).aspx) doesn't list NOEXPAND explicitly at all.