Entity Framework 6 supports SQL Server 2000?

Question

Anybody knows if SQL Server 2000 is supported in EF 6 for Code First? In the official websites I haven\'t found anything about which SQL Server versions are supported in EF

Answer 1

Although there is code to handle SQL Server 2000, there are valid queries that Entity Framework simply cannot translate to any form of SQL that will be accepted by that version of SQL Server. Such queries will result in run-time exceptions. The exact same queries do work on a model built for SQL Server 2005 or newer. The main limitation is that there is no good way of getting the effect of APPLY in that version of SQL Server.

Basically, you can use EF with SQL Server 2000, but it's less useful than on newer versions, and you need to make sure that each and every query your application uses actually gets tested, because the fact that it compiles doesn't mean that it will work.

Also, parts of the designer explicitly check for the SQL Server versions and reject SQL Server 2000.