While trace flag 272 may work for many, it definitely won't work for hosted Sql Server Express installations. So, I created an identity table, and use this through an INSTEAD OF trigger. I'm hoping this helps someone else, and/or gives others an opportunity to improve my solution. The last line allows returning the last identity column added. Since I typically use this to add a single row, this works to return the identity of a single inserted row.
The identity table:
CREATE TABLE [dbo].[tblsysIdentities](
[intTableId] [int] NOT NULL,
[intIdentityLast] [int] NOT NULL,
[strTable] [varchar](100) NOT NULL,
[tsConcurrency] [timestamp] NULL,
CONSTRAINT [PK_tblsysIdentities] PRIMARY KEY CLUSTERED
(
[intTableId] ASC
)WITH (PAD_INDEX = OFF, STATISTICS_NORECOMPUTE = OFF, IGNORE_DUP_KEY = OFF, ALLOW_ROW_LOCKS = ON, ALLOW_PAGE_LOCKS = ON) ON [PRIMARY]
) ON [PRIMARY]
and the insert trigger:
-- INSERT --
IF OBJECT_ID ('dbo.trgtblsysTrackerMessagesIdentity', 'TR') IS NOT NULL
DROP TRIGGER dbo.trgtblsysTrackerMessagesIdentity;
GO
CREATE TRIGGER trgtblsysTrackerMessagesIdentity
ON dbo.tblsysTrackerMessages
INSTEAD OF INSERT AS
BEGIN
DECLARE @intTrackerMessageId INT
DECLARE @intRowCount INT
SET @intRowCount = (SELECT COUNT(*) FROM INSERTED)
SET @intTrackerMessageId = (SELECT intIdentityLast FROM tblsysIdentities WHERE intTableId=1)
UPDATE tblsysIdentities SET intIdentityLast = @intTrackerMessageId + @intRowCount WHERE intTableId=1
INSERT INTO tblsysTrackerMessages(
[intTrackerMessageId],
[intTrackerId],
[strMessage],
[intTrackerMessageTypeId],
[datCreated],
[strCreatedBy])
SELECT @intTrackerMessageId + ROW_NUMBER() OVER (ORDER BY [datCreated]) AS [intTrackerMessageId],
[intTrackerId],
[strMessage],
[intTrackerMessageTypeId],
[datCreated],
[strCreatedBy] FROM INSERTED;
SELECT TOP 1 @intTrackerMessageId + @intRowCount FROM INSERTED;
END