SQL Server 2005 Installation hell

I got an "Unexpected Error message" for the Installation. And when I tried to do it again, the problem persist.

So tried another approach by installing components one at a time. But it still failed. So I reboot the machine. But still not working.

So I am uninstall the following items now.
- Microsoft SQL Server 2005 (left over by the failed installation)
- .....
(shoot, I forgot to write them down... but trust me... everything with the name "SQL Server" on it.)

Still doesn't work.

So I did Windows Update. Darn, a bunch of Windows update to do. And then I got a blue screen of death during the Windows update. What in the world.

And then I find out that the whole mess could be caused by not having all the files in place. So here's what I did:

• Go to C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\ directory and remove all the "MSSQL.x" directories.
• Uninstall all the "SQL Server" entries in "Add or Remove Program" list.
• Following the instruction here in Microsoft site to manually remove all the SQL Server components. (Pay special attention to the "%ProgramFiles%\Microsoft SQL Server\90\Setup Bootstrap\ARPWrapper.exe /Remove" section)
  
• Expand en_sql_2005_dev_x86_cd1.iso and en_sql_2005_dev_x86_cd2.iso into a folder. Run the .exe and install.

After tried and tried, it finally worked. I have SQL Server 2500 installed, and now installing service pack. But should I know that expanding both Disc 1 and Disc 2 image fiel into one place is such an import issue, I would have saved a lot of time by doing that in advance.

At least the nightmare is over now.

Contiune my journey of installing software for new machine

OK, the default setting for installing Visual Studio 2005 worked. Good.

Before installing Visual Studio 2005 SP1 on Windows Server 2003, remember to install the hotfix first.

I should have installed SQL Server 2005 before installing VS 2005. Now I have to UNINSTALL the SQL Server 2005 workstation component installed by VS 2005 (which does NOT have Management Studio, and have the lame SQL Express engine instead.) Well at least I found a way out.

Continue the saga of installing Visual Studio 2005

I found out in both case of installing Visual Studio .Net 2003 and 2005 that when installing across the network from a shared drive, both apps will not prompt you to swap disc, but instead simply stated that the file is not in the installation directory, and ask user to choose between retry and abort. And by that time I should swap the virtual .iso on my disc image hosting machine.

trying to install Visual Studio 2005

I got blue screen of death while I was trying to install Visual Studio 2005 through a network drive mounted to a virtual CDROM. I don't know what the heck is happening but if I encounter this crazy thing again I will copy all the installation files to the destination machine and install it locally instead.

Also I am going to do the Default installation instead of the full installation.

Essential software for .Net development, support and maintenance

I need to set up a baseline machine. Then the machine will be cloned so that all developer will have the same set of tools. Here's the list I came up, order by the Installation order:

- Daemon Tool 4.1.23 Lite (for virtually mount .iso )
- IIS 6.0 with Classic ASP
- Microsoft Office 2003 + Service pack 3
- Microsoft Office Communicator 2005
- Visual Basic 6 + Service Pack 5
- Visual Sourcesafe 6.0d + Service pack 6
- Visual Studio 2003 + Service Pack 1
- Visual Studio 2005 + Service Pack 1
- SQL Server 2005 Client + Service Pack 2
- Visual Studio 2008
- Tortoise 1.4.5
- NUnit 2.2.8
- NCover 1.3.4
- NCover Extra 1.3.4
- TestDriven.Net 2.12.2179
- ASP.net Ajax 1.0
- .Net Framework 1.1, 2.0, 3.0, 3.5

Problem using MSBuild 3.5 with PublishUrl and OneClick

I posted the following at MSDN forum:

-------------------------------


We experienced a serious problem publishing our WinForm (Visual Studio 2008 project but targetted to .net Framework 2.0) with MSBuild 3.5 that we had to rollback to MSBuild 2.0. Knowing that we eventually need to move to .Net Framework 3.5, I think I better resolve the problem now before it's too late.

Before we moved to Visual Studio 2008, we used the following command line with MSBuild 2.0.50727 to build and publish our WinForm application:



msbuild c:\awesome_app\awesome.csproj /p:ApplicationVersion=1.2.3.4;Configuration=release;PublishUrl='http://awesome/myApp.AwesomeApp.Admin'


It did the following for us:

• Create a folder called "...\bin\Release\myApp.AwesomeApp.AdminTemp" (as specified within the project setting)
• Have the application compile and stored in "myApp.AwesomeApp.AdminTemp"
• After we copied the files manually from "myApp.AwesomeApp.AdminTemp" the physical folder for the URL 'http://awesome/myApp.AwesomeApp.Admin', user can access the WinForm app by clicking a link that points to "myApp.AwesomeApp.Admin.Application"

Then we moved to Visual Studio 2008, and found that the command line doesn't work and thorw us error saying that "C:\Microsoft.CSharp.targets" is missing. Although we found a workaround by modifying the .csproj file, we decide to try doing the right thing by using MSBuild 3.5 . However, it seems like the behavior of MSBuild has been changed:

• Instead of creating a folder based on the name specified in the project, it creates a folder "...\bin\Release\App.Deploy" regardless.
• After we copied the files manually from "App.Deploy" the physical folder for the URL 'http://awesome/myApp.AwesomeApp.Admin', we can't access the WinForm app. Clicking the link that points to "myApp.AwesomeApp.Admin.Application" caused the downloading but eventually it says that something is wrong with the package, yet didn't explicitly say what.

So it seem like some behavior has been changed since 2.0.50727 regarding to OneClick and Publishing to an URL. Does anyone have the similar kind of experience, and able to find a way to work around the issue?



Daniel