I've been trying for the past 3 nights to take a .bak file of a database and convert it into .xls or .csv format. I extracted the .mdf and .ldf from the .bak and i've been trying everything under the sun to get this to work but i'm not familiar enough with windows server to know exactly what to do. I a php programmer and understand the workings of apache quite well but have no experience with microsoft server. So far from what i've gathered i need to setup the database on a server to be able and extract it as .xls/.csv format? I've installed quite a few microsoft apps trying to accomplish this with no succes. Things such as IIS7, sql server 2008, database manager, sql management studio...every time i installed one i felt like i was getting closer to my goal but now i just feel like i'm wasting my time since i'm not sure if the way i'm thinking i need to do this will even work?..... So my main question is this: If you had to take a .bak file of a database (or .mdf/.ldf as i have those files extracted as well) and somehow convert it to .xls or .csv format, how would YOU go about doing it? If anyone could point me in the right direction or shed some insight onto this topic it would be greatly appreciated! Thanks!!!
Upon further analysis i'm not even sure if this is possible. One should be able to pull table data into .xls or .csv but i'm failing to see how there would be any way for the entire database to be saved in this format. Sql maybe...but not .xls...I'm getting my information 3rd hand here so there's time for it to get miss-construed...it happens. If I'm wrong about this not being possible please enlighten me...thanks!