Bob Baker (12/22/2008)

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Thanks for the quick reply! I understand your concerns. The scenario is a Silverlight application that will be shrink-wrap deployed in small offices with 1-3 users. The attached DB will be called into from the web service living on the web site the Silverlight app is downloaded from in the small office network. I was thinking about deployment more than performance, and was thinking that once the site is hit, the web service is attached to the dB and won't be re-attached until the ASP.Net worker process re-cycles. Am I incorrect in this last assumption?

Unlike versions of SQL Server that run as a service, SQL Server Express instances do not need to be manually started and stopped. Each time a user logs in and connects to a user instance, the user instance is started if it is not already running. User instance databases have the AutoClose option set so that the database is automatically shut down after a period of inactivity. The sqlservr.exe process that is started is kept running for a limited time-out period after the last connection to the instance is closed, so it does not need to be restarted if another connection is opened before the time-out has expired. The user instance automatically shuts down if no new connection opens before that time-out period has expired. A system administrator on the parent instance can set the duration of the time-out period for a user instance by using sp_configure to change the user instance timeout option. The default is 60 minutes.