My experience with the Installation of SQL Server 2005 on Windows Server 2008

As part of the SQL upgrade process i had to create an alternate setup for SQL Server on Windows Server 2008 . I had two choices

option1: install SQL Server 2005 Enterprise on windows Server 2008 R2 Standard

option2: install SQL Server 2008 Enterprise R2 on Windows Server 2008 R2 Standard

i choose option1 as i wanted to test the upgrade process to SQL Server 2008 later

so i started the installation of SQL Server 2005, during system configuration check i got the warning

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IIS Feature Requirement (Warning) :



Microsoft Internet Information Services (IIS) is either not installed or is disabled. IIS is required by some SQL Server features. Without IIS, some SQL Server features will not be available for installation. To install all SQL Server features, install IIS from Add or Remove Programs in Control Panel or enable the IIS service through the Control Panel if it is already installed, and then run SQL Server Setup again. For a list of features that depend on IIS, see Features Supported by Editions of SQL Server in Books Online.



For installation IIS on Windows 2008 follow the article

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/920201/en-us and http://learn.iis.net/page.aspx/29/installing-iis-7-on-windows-server-2008-or-windows-server-2008-r2/

another reference http://blogs.technet.com/b/seanearp/archive/2008/07/01/installing-sql-server-2005-on-windows-server-2008.aspx

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you can ignore the warning as IIS is required only for reporting services.the reason is because Windows Server 2008 have just been released and the operating system information on the page is not fully up to date .



According to Microsoft, SQL Server 2005 requires Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Service Pack 2 (SP2) to run on Windows Server 2008 and Windows Vista SP1. And the full release version of SQL Server 2005 has to be first installed before the SP2 can be applied.



After the successfull installation of SQL Server 2005 , i was able to install SP1 got a warning for analysis services to install hotfix 2047. i didnot do that as i am on the way to install SP2, hoping it will remove the warning. as expected the installation was successfull without any warning. did the SQL provisioning and restarted the server.so far good. tried to open database with SQL Server management studio, there comes the error. No instance, No database is shown. checked with ODBC data source database and instance exist.



followed the article http://decoding.wordpress.com/2008/04/18/how-to-install-sql-server-2005-on-windows-server-2008/

downloaded the hotfix from http://support.microsoft.com/kb/950636

no luck.got the message the update is not applicable to your computer .

installed the backup feature still the same error.

now the next option for me is to do an upgrade to sql server 2008 r2. the upgrade advisor tells me no reporting services is installed. ofcourse its not. will do it later.now continuing with upgrade.upgrade was successfull. but the sql server management studio cannot find the instances.



Now i did not want to spent more time on this process . so removed all installation of SQL 2005 and SQl 2008 and went for the option2. to those who don't have option2 can check the below reference as well



List of known issues when you install SQL Server 2005 on Windows Server 2008 :

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/936302