Installing SQL Server 2008

Introduction

The installation process for SQL Server 2008 has many different options. These options allow you more control over your SQL Server Instance configuration. Having this additional control allows you to set up your SQL Server 2008 instances out of the box with the appropriate configuration, like directory structure, accounts, etc. In this article I’ll walk you through the SQL Server installation process.

Machine Set Up

Prior to installing SQL Server 2008 you need to make sure your SQL Server machine will meet the requirements for SQL Server 2008. There are many different requirements that your SQL Server 2008 machine must meet depending on what version of SQL Server you are installing and the base operating system you are going to use. It is out of the scope of this article to describe all the different machine setups and dependences. Prior to installing SQL Server 2008 you should review the following webpage to identify the correct machine setup for your environment: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms143506.aspx.

For the purpose of this article I will be installing an evaluation copy of SQL Server 2008 Enterprise Edition. The base operating system I will be installing SQL Server on will be Windows 2003 Enterprise Edition SP1 version. My machine is also configured with a C, D, E, F, and G drives. I will use these different drives to place different components of SQL Server.

Initial Setup Process

When you first stick the SQL Server 2008 CD into your drive it will automatically startup the setup process for SQL Server 2008. If the setup doesn’t start then find the “setup.exe” file and run it. When the setup process starts it will check your machine to make sure the .Net Framework and an updated copy of Windows Installer are on your machine. If these are not on your machine then setup will require that these be installed first before you can install SQL Server 2008. The setup process will walk you through installing these prerequisites if they are not already installed. If you have to install them a reboot will be required before you can perform the actual install of SQL server 2008. Once your machine has all the prerequisites installed the setup process will bring up the following window:




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On this window you can see you have a number of different hyperlinks you can use. There is a navigation pane on the left that has different SQL Server 2008 items you can pick from and on the right pane are the items associated with the selected left pane item. In my case I have the “Planning” item selected. Note it is displayed in bold font. To install SQL Server 2008 I will need to click on the “Installation” item. When I do that the following screen is displayed:




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On this window you can also do a number of different things related to installing SQL Server. For the purpose of this article I will be going through the first item “New SQL Server stand-alone installation or add features to an existing installation” item to create a brand new SQL Server 2008 instance.

Installation Process

Once you click on the “New SQL Server stand-alone installation or add features to an existing installation” item a series processes will run and some dialog boxes will be displayed to allow you to configure SQL Server 2008 the way you would like. In SQL Server 2008 a number of new configuration options are available at installation time, which in prior releases had to be done after you installed SQL Server.

After the stand-alone instance installation item is click the set up process runs through a number of rule check processes to verify that your system is setup correctly. The first one does a system configuration check. After each one of these rule check processes you are given a summarized report telling you whether or not your system passed the rules checked. In that summary report you are given the option to view a detailed report of each rule. I would suggest you look at the detail rules report to verify each rule. If you find a rule that needs to be fixed you will need to resolve the issue and then re-run the rule checks.

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