John,
yes - this can work. You'd have a merge publication and pull subscriptions,
activated by your vb.net application.
Cheers,
Paul Ibison SQL Server MVP, www.replicationanswers.com
(recommended sql server 2000 replication book:
http://www.nwsu.com/0974973602p.html)

Or you could have the sync managed by Windows Synchronization Manager or
task scheduler. SQL Server Express does not ship with a scheduler. I would
also have a look at SQL Server Everywhere edition - due out this summer.

--
Hilary Cotter
Director of Text Mining and Database Strategy
RelevantNOISE.Com - Dedicated to mining blogs for business intelligence.

This posting is my own and doesn't necessarily represent RelevantNoise's
positions, strategies or opinions.

Looking for a SQL Server replication book?
http://www.nwsu.com/0974973602.html

Looking for a FAQ on Indexing Services/SQL FTS
http://www.indexserverfaq.com



[quoted text, click to view]

Hi

We have a situation where the sql server backend is on the server but
several laptop users need to disconnect and still be able to use the data.
Can we have copies of say sql express on each laptop which can replicate
data with the sql server when connected and still make the data available
while disconnected from the server? Will this work, specially when the app
front end will be in vb.net?

Thanks

Regards