Hi Janos,

The SQL Server 2016 backup should be used to start a new database - which you will probably keep forever. Later in the documentation, after the database restore, the compatibility settings will be raised from SQL Server 2016 to 2017.

-Dave

Hi Dave! I'm setting this instance up for our tech writers to evaluate new features before we'll do a major upgrade, so it is a throwaway instance. Unfortunately SQL Server 2017 throws an exception when trying to restore from a 2016 bak file. I decided to skip the sample database and will use the Import Tool to add some demo content. However, the InstallTool does not create any DB objects: it fails at this step: "System.Data.SqlClient.SqlException (0x80131904): Invalid object name 'dbo.ish_setup_history'." So I'm stuck setting up a clean install with a SQL Server 2017. Just by curiosity, I bypassed this step by manually creating the table with the create sql table scripts. After that the install script completes, but still no tables.

Hi Dave! I'm setting this instance up for our tech writers to evaluate new features before we'll do a major upgrade, so it is a throwaway instance. Unfortunately SQL Server 2017 throws an exception when trying to restore from a 2016 bak file. I decided to skip the sample database and will use the Import Tool to add some demo content. However, the InstallTool does not create any DB objects: it fails at this step: "System.Data.SqlClient.SqlException (0x80131904): Invalid object name 'dbo.ish_setup_history'." So I'm stuck setting up a clean install with a SQL Server 2017. Just by curiosity, I bypassed this step by manually creating the table with the create sql table scripts. After that the install script completes, but still no tables.

Janos Ficsor said:

Unfortunately SQL Server 2017 throws an exception when trying to restore from a 2016 bak file.

Can you share details of the error message? Because on Release Candidates it is the route I took...

I would definitely not go over creating tables yourself, porting, etc... that will lead to many more issues.

Thanks for confirming it works. After looking into it I realized I omitted steps 5,6,7 which prevented the db overwrite and caused the error. Now I can import the bak. Thanks!