First you need a SQL server at least to the revision that Datapage is using and it cannot be lower. So if you're Datapage is running SQL 2008R2, than your SQL server needs to be at least SQL 2008R2 or greater. It does not matter if you are running SQL express or a fully licensed version of SQL. If you are installing a version of SQL Express on a virtual machine then it can be the only instance of SQL on that virtual machine, ports cannot be shared between the same computer.
You then will need to create a database on your Datapage machine and then disconnect it from the SQL server either by killing the process (not preferred) or by using SQL server management studio (SSMS is the preferred method). After you kill the process or disconnect it then you can move or copy this file to another location without VSS giving you issues. Once this database is created and saved to another area you can give that to your IT professional to attach to the SQL server where you wish to host your database. Your IT professional will then be required to attach this file to the database through SSMS.
At this point your SQL server should be visible on the network and you should be able to create a database connection string through data importer or if you wish to use the stats/on command you will need to create an ODBC data source for each user of the computer that intends to use the machine with the same name for each user. if your ODBC data source name that you create is not an exact match for the name of the database you use in your stats on command it will not work.
I do this all of the time and it's rarely ever easy. Unless your IT professional is relatively decent with SQL you're not going to have much luck.
First you need a SQL server at least to the revision that Datapage is using and it cannot be lower. So if you're Datapage is running SQL 2008R2, than your SQL server needs to be at least SQL 2008R2 or greater. It does not matter if you are running SQL express or a fully licensed version of SQL. If you are installing a version of SQL Express on a virtual machine then it can be the only instance of SQL on that virtual machine, ports cannot be shared between the same computer.
You then will need to create a database on your Datapage machine and then disconnect it from the SQL server either by killing the process (not preferred) or by using SQL server management studio (SSMS is the preferred method). After you kill the process or disconnect it then you can move or copy this file to another location without VSS giving you issues. Once this database is created and saved to another area you can give that to your IT professional to attach to the SQL server where you wish to host your database. Your IT professional will then be required to attach this file to the database through SSMS.
At this point your SQL server should be visible on the network and you should be able to create a database connection string through data importer or if you wish to use the stats/on command you will need to create an ODBC data source for each user of the computer that intends to use the machine with the same name for each user. if your ODBC data source name that you create is not an exact match for the name of the database you use in your stats on command it will not work.
I do this all of the time and it's rarely ever easy. Unless your IT professional is relatively decent with SQL you're not going to have much luck.
