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Initial State of Computer

Assuming you are working with the Windows XP OS, it will be advisable to create a restore point to which you can fall back should you fail to install and something goes wrong. You can set up a fall back position by going to Start | All Programs | Accessories | System Tools | System Restore. This allows you to comeback where you were before starting the install. The other thing that you should lookup is the suite of Microsoft software you already have on your computer that may interfere with the product you are installing. This can be reviewed following Start | Control Panel | Add and Remove Programs.

SQL 2008 server requires IE 6.0 or higher version. It may be helpful to install this before embarking on installing the SQL 2008 Server. For the purpose of this article IE 7.0 was installed. It has appeared in some forum topics that SQL 2008 can exist side-by-side with SQL 2005 server. However in the present case SQL 2005 was completely removed. Sometimes even this removal is not quite an easy process if something is broken in the original install and requires you to reinstall and then uninstall. In the case of SQL Server 2008, there was an earlier version, “Katmai”, installed but never used due to its inability to connect to the SQL Server Management Studio (Well, unless you remove the SQL 2005 client you cannot install SQL 2008 Client), a fact which came to light much later. ‘Katmai’ components were completely removed which required reinstalling the ‘Katmai’ followed by its complete removal.

When you download the SQL 2008 and run the executable, it creates the folder, servers, containing a number of subfolders and files (dynamic link library files etc) that are used during the installation. Help can be accessed from servershelp1033s10ch_setup, an HTML file which provides a wealth of information regarding all aspects of installation including migration from an earlier version. From servesdefault.htm you can begin the installation which provides the required support using Prepare | Install | Other information navigational aid.

After removing all the suggested components during this installation, the remaining Microsoft SQL Server related components on the computer are as shown in the Add and Remove Programs window in the next figure.

The very first screen you will see when you click on the serverssetup.exe file is the SQL Server 2008 Setup where you need to agree with the licensing terms before proceeding.

When you click on the Next button which displays the Installation Pre-requisites screen, you will be shown the pending items needed before you install SQL 2008 server. Click on the Install button after highlighting the pending item regarding setup support files in the right screen.

SQL Server Installation Center

This will take you to the SQL Server Installation Center screen as shown. It has a number of useful hyperlinks that you can come back to by repeating the above steps.

Click on New Installation link. This Starts Install SQL Server 2008 Wizard for System Configuration Check. After a while when the checking is completed the following screen will be displayed. This timeall items have the status marked ‘Passed’. In a previous attempt when the ‘Katmai’ items were still uninstalled,the Previous CTP Install Check did not succeed and it was corrected only after completely removing those items.

Clicking on Next button takes you to screen where you need to select the features that you want to have installed as shown. The display shows Features Selection window after all items have been checked.