One common question that we hear from people using the Database Model Diagram template in Visio is "What happened to the Generate and Update commands?"

The short answer is that the Generate and Update commands are not available in the Standard and Professional editions of either Microsoft Office Visio 2003 or Microsoft Visio 2002. The Generate and Update commands are only available in Microsoft Visio Enterprise Architect edition and Microsoft Visio 2000 Enterprise Edition.

Microsoft Visio Enterprise Architect edition is part of Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 2003 Enterprise Architect. To learn more about Visual Studio .NET 2003 Enterprise Architect, click the link in the See Also section.

Visio Standard and Visio Professional cannot generate a database, such as a Microsoft Access or Microsoft SQL Server™ database, from a database model diagram. Nor can they update a physical database from changes that you make to your model diagrams.

If you want to generate or update a database from a database model diagram, you must use either Microsoft Visio Enterprise Architect edition or Visio 2000 Enterprise Edition. For information on upgrading from Visio 2000 Enterprise Edition to Visual Studio .NET 2003 Enterprise Architect, click the link in the See Also section.

 Note   Visio 2003 uses a different file format than the 2003 edition of Visio Enterprise Architect. If you create a database model diagram in Visio 2003, you must save it as a Visio 2002 file before you can open it in Visio Enterprise Architect. On the File menu, click Save As, and then, in the Save as type list box, click Visio 2002 drawing.