Opening a SQL Server .bak file (Not restoring!)

Question

I have been reading a LOT of google posts and StackOverflow questions about how to restore a database in SQL Server from a .bak file.

But none of them states how to just

Answer 1

The only workable solution is to restore the .bak file. The contents and the structure of those files are not documented and therefore, there's really no way (other than an awful hack) to get this to work - definitely not worth your time and the effort!

The only tool I'm aware of that can make sense of .bak files without restoring them is Red-Gate SQL Compare Professional (and the accompanying SQL Data Compare) which allow you to compare your database structure against the contents of a .bak file. Red-Gate tools are absolutely marvelous - highly recommended and well worth every penny they cost!

And I just checked their web site - it does seem that you can indeed restore a single table from out of a .bak file with SQL Compare Pro ! :-)