Question: How do I generate test data using Visual Studio 2012?

I found these 2 articles on how to do it using VS 2010. But what about VS 2012?

* [SQL Server 2008 R2 Test Data Load Using VS2010](http://www.jnrit.com.au/2011/05/15/SQL-Server-2008-R2-Test-Data-Load-Using-VS2010.aspx)
* [Generating Test Data for Databases by Using Data Generators](http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd193262%28v=vs.100%29.aspx)

My database is an SQL-Server 2008-R2 database.

Thanks in advance.

Answer: 
While this feature was in Visual Studio 2010 (if you added VSTE DBPRO), it [did not make the cut for Visual Studio 2012 / SSDT](http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/ssdt/thread/5ce89ff5-3ce4-4a88-b43b-7da1794697bf) (yet). This does not mean it will not make it into the product before the next release - it is the sort of thing that could come as a feature pack, [power tool](http://visualstudiogallery.msdn.microsoft.com/96a2f8cc-0c8b-47dd-93cd-1e8e9f34a917) or even in a service pack. [Same with database unit testing and data compare functionality](http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/ssdt/thread/158edfb4-3712-4468-b37e-f454ad8a984d/).

As I suggested in a comment, in the meantime you could use a 3rd party tool like [RedGate's SQL Data Generator](http://www.red-gate.com/products/sql-development/sql-data-generator/). Also see [this question](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/1577063/sql-server-data-generation) for some other options. And hang in there. :-)
We would need to rely on 3rd party tools from now on as this feature will not be supported by Microsoft in the future. 
 <http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ssdt/archive/2013/06/24/announcing-sql-server-data-tools-june-2013.aspx>
search for "Data Generation is not included and is not planned to be released in the future"

Not a big deal if we use test driven development. In TDD we would have component test touching database (full scenario coverage). We could use the same modules to create test data.