SQL LocalDB 2014 and 2016 on same machine?

I’m about to install Visual Studio 2017 RC on my PC where I have SambaPOS V5 installed with SQL LocalDB 2014. Some of the components I want to install with VS have a prerequisite of installing SQL LocalDB 2016. I don’t want to affect any of my SambaPOS databases that currently use LocalDB 2014 (I want them to continue doing so). If I install LocalDB 2016, is it going to automatically upgrade the LocalDB 2014 instance that got installed using the SambaPOS installer to 2016?

What I really want is just to have LocalDB 2016 installed but not touch the LocalDB 2014 I already have, and I want to be able to keep using that 2014 instance for SambaPOS, because otherwise it will give me lots of hassle when installing SambaPOS on new systems since LocalDB 2016 is not available within the SambaPOS installer and I would have to install it separately every time.

Even I have a lot of experience with using SQL Server, my knowledge of LocalDB is a bit lacking and I’m finding it difficult to find an answer to this specific question online.

@emre or anyone else got any idea?

Ok probably can now answer this myself :stuck_out_tongue:

Went ahead and just installed VS which also installed SQL LocalDB 2016

I can see from running the sqllocaldb.exe tool that multiple instances of LocalDB can co-exist on the system (just like normal SQL Server) and it hasn’t touched my 2014 version (instance = MSSQLLocalDB in this case)

C:\Users\Mark>sqllocaldb v
Microsoft SQL Server 2012 (11.0.3000.0)
Microsoft SQL Server 2014 (12.0.4487.0)
Microsoft SQL Server 2016 (13.0.1601.5)

C:\Users\Mark>sqllocaldb i MSSQLLocalDB
Name:               MsSqlLocalDB
Version:            12.0.4487.0
Shared name:
Owner:              MARK-PC\Mark
Auto-create:        Yes
State:              Running
Last start time:    17/02/2017 21:37:55
Instance pipe name: np:\\.\pipe\LOCALDB#8E62B4E1\tsql\query
3 Likes