Updating LocalDB

localdb

Written on March 9, 2021

TLDR The ‘Basic’ option in the SQL Express installer doesn’t install LocalDB, you need to switch to ‘Download Media’ and select it as the option there.

Backstory

I recently discovered that although Visual Studio installs a version of LocalDB it is not necessarily the latest one (or updated when Visual Studio updates) and I ran in to problems while trying to run a script containing OPTIMIZE_FOR_SEQUENTIAL_KEY which requires v15 - two versions above the version installed by Visual Studio.

To upgrade LocalDB I followed this article including running:

C:\
λ sqllocaldb stop MSSQLLocalDB
LocalDB instance "MSSQLLocalDB" stopped.

C:\
λ sqllocaldb delete MSSQLLocalDB
LocalDB instance "MSSQLLocalDB" deleted.

C:\
λ sqllocaldb create MSSQLLocalDB
LocalDB instance "MSSQLLocalDB" created with version 15.0.2000.5.

C:\
λ sqllocaldb start MSSQLLocalDB
LocalDB instance "MSSQLLocalDB" started.

And then manually attaching the databases via SSMS. The only minor issue was that I wasted time assuming the ‘Basic’ install option would deal with LocalDB - and it did not. For future reference, if you only want the LocalDB part then select ‘Download Media’ and select it through there.