How to migrate a Microsoft SQL database back to an older version of SQL
There are situations where you might need to migrate newer-version SQL Server databases to older versions of the MSSQL engine, such as in various QA or testing scenarios, or after an upgrade that for any number of reasons calls for a rollback but needs to keep existing data. Unfortunately, backup/restore does not work when going from a newer to an older version of Microsoft SQL Server– it is not possible to restore a SQL 2012 database backup into a SQL 2005 server, for example. So in order to accomplish this, we have to take a different approach. Keep reading…