Entity Framework, No SQL server, What do I do?

Is there seriously no way of using a shared access non-server driven database file format without having to use an SQL Server? The Entity Framework is great, and it's not until I've completely finished designing my database model, getting SQL Server Compact Edition 4.0 to work with Visual Studio that I find out that it basically cannot be run off a network drive and be used by multiple users. I appreciate I should have done some research!

The only other way as far as I can tell is to have to set up an SQL server, something which I doubt I would be able to do. I'm searching for possible ways to use it with Access databases (which can be shared on a network drive) but this seems either difficult or impossible.

Would I have to go back to typed DataSets or even manually coding the SQL code?

Another alternative is to try using SQL

Install SQL Server express. Access is not supported by EF at all and my experience with file based databases (Access, SQL Server CE) is mostly:

• If you need some very small mostly readonly data to persist in database you can use them (good for code tables but in the same time such data can be simply stored in XML).
• If you expect some concurrent traffic and often writing into DB + larger data sets their performance and usability drops quickly. They are mostly useful for local storage for single user.

I'm not sure how this relates for example to SQLite. To generate database from model for SQLite you need special T4 template (using correct SQL syntax).

Have you tried SQLite? It has a SQL provider, and as far as I know EF supports any provider. Since it's file-based, that might be a plausible solution. It's also free.