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Opening a .bak file
I have.bak file about 35mb, a database backup. I want to open this file so that I can view its contents. Fileviewer software can not do this. Could someone help me how to open this file?
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From my understanding a file viewer sowtware does not help you much. I would suggested to use SQL Server management studio. Also if you want to use a database you need restore that database. First download and install sql server express edition and sql server management studio from the microsoft site. After installation open sql express management studio, connect to the local sql server and there in the databases list, you will get restore database option. Details find in articles [
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms177429.aspx][2] [
http://sqlbak.com/blog/open-a-bak-file/][1] [1]:
http://sqlbak.com/blog/open-a-bak-file/ [2]:
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms177429.aspx
View it's contents? It is a database backup, so you would need to restore it to a database server, and 'view' it through a database management system e.g. SSMS. You can open a bak file with a text editor (such as notepad) but you will be viewing the internal representation of a database - unless you know what you are looking at, this won't be very user-friendly
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