SQL Server 2008 Express Setup Challenge

Tue, 09 Mar 2010 22:46:58 +0000

I’ve spend about 2 hours tonight getting SQL Server 2008 Express installed on a Windows Server 2008 system…….. Launched the installation package, it started extracting it’s content, it made an attempt to launch the embedded setup.exe and then…..Nothing.

The temporary folder that holds the extracted installation files got deleted and all that was left was the below error log.

03/09/2010 23:22:48.079 ======================================================================
03/09/2010 23:22:48.235 Setup launched
03/09/2010 23:22:48.282 Attempting to determine media source
03/09/2010 23:22:48.329 Media source value not specified on command line argument.
03/09/2010 23:22:48.360 Setup is launched from media directly so default the value to the current folder.
03/09/2010 23:22:48.407 Media source: c:\3c583b87cb85226328b6ae0c9d\
03/09/2010 23:22:48.454 Attempt to determine media layout based on file ‘c:\3c583b87cb85226328b6ae0c9d\mediainfo.xml’.
03/09/2010 23:22:49.454 The folder ‘c:\3c583b87cb85226328b6ae0c9d' does not contain a valid media info file ‘mediainfo.xml’.
03/09/2010 23:22:49.517 Setup closed with exit code: 0x84C4001E
03/09/2010 23:22:49.579 ======================================================================

SQL Server 2008 Express Installation Sources

Sun, 07 Mar 2010 14:31:27 +0000

I got a bit confused by all the different SQL Server 2008 Express downloads that exist, so spend a little time in getting some insight. If you want to download SQL Server 2008 Express you have the following options:

 **Package** **Download** Microsoft® SQL Server® 2008 Express Edition Service Pack 1 [Download](http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=01AF61E6-2F63-4291-BCAD-FD500F6027FF&displaylang=en) Microsoft® SQL Server® 2008 Express with Tools [Download](http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=7522A683-4CB2-454E-B908-E805E9BD4E28&displaylang=en) Microsoft® SQL Server® 2008 Express with Advanced Services [Download](http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=B5D1B8C3-FDA5-4508-B0D0-1311D670E336&displaylang=en#filelist)

Then I recommend reading the following blog posts. What’s up with SQL Server 2008 Express editions provides an overview of the supported feature of each distribution. The SQL Express 2008 family is getting bigger gives a good insight what the different installation packages do contain.

Sql-Server-2008-Express on Anything About IT

SQL Server 2008 Express Setup Challenge

SQL Server 2008 Express Installation Sources