"SQL Server 2008 edition upgrade" failed

Question

We accidentally installed sql 2008 Enteprrise edition on one of our servers and I want to downgrade it to Sql 2008 Standard.

I went to "SQL Server Installation Center" > Maintenance > Edition upgrade.  The wizard ran, I entered a valid Sql 2008 Std key,  but one of the "edition Upgrade Rules"  failed. (The "SQL Server 2008 edition upgrade" rule).  The reason given was "The Selected SQL Server instance does not meet upgrade matrix requirements."  (Duh!!). I noticed that the "SQL Server 2008 edition downgrade" rule had passed but the "Next" button was grayed out. So I'm stuck. Do I need to uninstall the Enterprise edition on this server and install Standard 2008 in its place or is there a better approach?



TIA,
Barkingdog

Answer 1

There is no direct way to downgrade from EE to SE (in-place downgrade).  Below are the steps.

 

1.       Take backup of ALL database (file level and SQL level to be on safe side). Make a note of current version of SQL Server.

2.       Uninstall SQL Server (EE). Clean orphan entries (if any)

3.       Install SQL Server (SE) on same path as earlier.

4.       Bring SQL to same build/version

5.       Restore the backups taken. If path is same, you can stop SQL, replace database files, and start SQL.

 

Let me know if you have any questions.

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Balmukund Lakhani | Please mark solved if I've answered your question | http://blogs.msdn.com/blakhani

Answer 2

Thank you.  That makes perfect sense to me. I was just hoping the "edition upgrade" option would do the trick as the method you state is a lot more work (and some of the steps  can be possibly troublesome).


While we have not yet implemented it, I wonder if the above steps would work if one has encrypted data in the database. (The approach is effectively moving the data to a new server. I don't know if the master databases keys, etc would like that!)



Barkingdog

Answer 3

I assume this applied to downgrading from Standard to Workgroup also? 

Answer 4

Yes, it does not support. More information can be found at the following Books Online article: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms143393.aspx.

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Best Regards,
Chunsong Feng

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