I'm looking for a way to extract a SQL Server 2005 database in a format that can be read by 2000, by a method that can be automated and run as a scheduled task (so "Wizards" are out). Upgrading the 2000 server is not an option since it's an MSDE instance in a 3rd-party package.
The root of the problem is that SQL Server's "backup" command outputs files in some binary format which earlier versions of SQL Server cannot read. Looking at the online documentation for "backup", there does not seem to be a way to specify an earlier version of the backup file. The specific error I'm getting is this:
"The backed-up database has on-disk structure version 611. The server supports version 539 and cannot restore or upgrade this database."
Googling the error brings up a bunch of MS techs saying "You can't do this, period", but it doesn't sound like an impossible task. There has to be a script somewhere to export the database in an importable format (like SQL!), but I've had no luck finding one. I also saw a suggestion to simply copy over the .mdb and .ldb files (which works for a 2000->2005 upgrade), but the 2005 system is a live server that I can't down to try this out.
Does anyone have any other ideas or know of a script that I could use? This has me stumped.