blog.thecarlos.com

I ran into a problem with a SQL 2005 installation today that I wanted to jot a note down about.  Microsoft's volume licensing website gives us three files for SQL 2005.  The key is not to extract them all into the same directory.  If you do, you'll end up with an installation tool that is missing the server components.

To avoid being completely confused, extract the files like this:

 <root>\Server
SW_CD_SQL_Svr_Standard_Edtn_2005_64Bit_X64_English_1_x64_MLF_X11-57664.EXE

<root>\Tools
SW_CD_SQL_Svr_Standard_Edtn_2005_64Bit_X64_English_2_x64_MLF_X11-57665.EXE

<root>\SQL 2005 ServicePack2
 SW_CD_NTRL_SQL_Svr_2005SP2_64Bit_X64_English_1_X13-36347.EXE


By the way, run Setup.EXE from the Server directory and don't forget to patch SQL with the latest Service  Pack!