INSTALLATION AND INSTANCE NIGHTMARE - PLEASE HELP!!

Question

To cut a long story short, I was hapilly using SQL server express 2005 along with VWD 2005 until I ran into a problem. I then decided to uninstall my 2005 suite and go for 2008 (SQL server express and VWD). I seemed to be having numerous problems installing the SQL server express 2008 edition, namely the fact that I found the installation center hugely over-confusing. All I really wanted was an installer like with most programs. So after several hours of browsing the net and trying to install SQL server express 2008, I decided to give up and reinstall the 2005 suite again! Now, when I run the installer it says there is a SQLEXPRESS instance already installed as part of the 2008 package, even though I deleted the whole 2008 suite through the control panel. So basically now I cannot install the named instance SQLEXPRESS because somehow my machine thinks its already installed. Of course I could create another instance but It has been bugging me for so long now I want to get rid of the 2008 instance for good. Any ideas why this is still here and how I could manually remove the instance somehow? Thanks very much for your time. Andi.

Answer 1

Even with everything SQL uninstalled, reg keys removed, directories deleted, I still get this that says the 2008 services are already installed.

Answer 2

Hi Andi,

I am moving this thread from Base "Installing and Registering Visual Studio Express Editions" forum to the "SQL Server Setup & Upgrade" forum, since the issue is related to SQL installation. There are more SQL experts in the "SQL Server Setup & Upgrade" forum.

Thanks

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Answer 3

Hi Andi,

Thank you for your post!

Based on your description, I want to confirm with you the following:

1       Installed Visual Web Developer (VWD) 2005 Express Edition which shipped with SQL Server 2005 Express Edition.

2       Install VWD 2008 Express Edition which shipped with SQL Server 2008 Express Edition, so you uninstalled VWD 2005 and then installed VWD 2008.

3       Now, you want VWD 2005 back, but find that you can not install SQLEXPRESS instance of SQL Server 2005 Express Edition

 

If so:

 

The issue probably due to that the SQLEXPRESS instance of SQL Server 2008 Express Edition still exists, or is not uninstalled completely.

 

In order to install SQL Server 2005 Express Edition successfully, you need to uninstall all SQL related components, please try the following:

Switch to Add and Remove Programs/Programs and Features, and then uninstall it. Sometimes, we cannot uninstall all things of SQL Server, so please run the Windows Installer CleanUp Utility here to remove installation information.

 

After uninstalled, if you have any problems with installation, please feel free to let me know and post the setup summary.txt default in %ProgramFiles%\Microsoft SQL Server\90\Setup Bootstrap\LOG folder.

 

Good luck!

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ChunSong Feng
Microsoft Online Community Support

Please remember to mark the replies as answers if they help and unmark them if they provide no help.
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