Sharepoint uses the Windows Internal Database for stand-alone mode. This is basically a version of SQL Server 2005 made for embedding in other programs and this version is based upon the very popular SQL Sever 2005 Express Edition.

In order to view the databases you need to have SQL Server Management Console installed. If you haven’t installed SQL Server on your box or vm then go download SQL Server Management Studio Express.

Once you have Management Studio installed open it up and connect to this server:

\\.\pipe\mssql$microsoft##ssee\sql\query

and, there you are, the Sharepoint database is now open for browsing. Not too bad, but look at that name, huh. You think that is made to be human readable? No? You’re right! 

This should tell you something. Don’t mess around with these databases. You really should not even be looking at them. Unfortunately, considering the state of Microsoft development, we often don’t trust Microsoft to do a good job and want to know where the “guts” are. I know the feeling, believe me, but please don’t go messing around with these databases as you could kill your Sharepoint install pretty easily.

This does give a good glimpse into how Microsoft organizes and controls Sharepoint. It also give a good look into why, as much as I love Sharepoint, it is a total and complete mess of a product. I don’t even know how Microsoft programmers can not feel shame and remourse for the crap they put out. Human usable, nope. Hell, a Cyberman would have a hard time working this stuff. We can only hope that at some point reason will win out and these people at Microsoft will return to being people and stop thinking they are computers. Until then we will have to put up with patched, messed up, misbegotten, poorly thought through, badly designed, non-intuitive programs like Sharepoint and the latest versions of .Net.

Sigh.

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