SQL Server 2008 tools installation issues when SQL Server 2005 client tools are present - FAQ and gotchas.
How many times you have faced the problems in installing SQL Server client tools?
Have you ever tried to install latest version of SQL Server tools on previous version?
Recently I have run into such a problem when installing SQL Server 2008 client tools on set of PCs for the DBA support team. KBA956139 refers that:
Visual Studio 2008 does not support having both Visual Studio 2008 without a service pack and Visual Studio 2008 with SP1 installed on the same computer. Because certain SQL Server 2008 features install components that are also part of the release version of Visual Studio 2008 SP1, SQL Server 2008 requires Visual Studio 2008 with SP1. The version of Visual Studio 2008 with SP1 must be the release version and not a beta version. If Visual Studio 2008 without a service pack is installed instead, it may not work correctly after you install SQL Server 2008.
As a part of installing SQL Server 2008 tools a pre-requisite of Visual Studio 2008 must be installed along with the Service Pack1 patch. SSIS components and parts of Reporting Services including the features within SQL engine requires Visual Studio and only some SQL Server 2008 features install Visual Studio 2008 components. If any of these features are selected at the end of the SQL Server 2008 setup process, also the SQL Server 2008 Setup blocks the installation if it detects any Visual Studio product that is earlier than Service Pack 1. For all required actions refer to the above KBA and take action that will reduce the pre-requisite issues for your installation.
SQL Server Management tools include the following components:
- SQL Server Management Studio
- SQL Server Profiler
- SQL Server Database Tuning Advisor
- Command prompt tools, such as sqlcmd.exe and osql.exe.
- Business Intelligence Development Studio add-ins to Microsoft Visual Studio
You need to be aware that installation of BIDS will be a separate option during SQL Server installation. You can have only 1 copy of SQL Server 2008 Management tools regardless of more than 1 instance of SQL Server service is installed on a Computer.
The feature of SSMS 2008 is they can reside along with earlier version of SQL management tools on the same computer. Also there is another KB article I would like to refer that on a 64-bit computer, you try to install the 64-bit version of Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Business Intelligence Development Studio review workaround mentioned in KB960217 link.
During this installation I have faced few issues such as when trying to create a new BI project using BIDS get an error stating: 'Cannot load file or assembly' and also stated that that the project type is not supported by the application. At this moment I wondered whether I tried to install SQL Server Express tools or any Express edition related services on this computer. The first option you must check that after installing the Client tools check about the BIDS assemblies exists on \Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 9.0\Common7\IDE\PrivateAssemblies or whatever directory you have chosen while installing the Visual Studio tools.
No doubt that since SQL Server 2005 installs lot of stuff and files and when you have mixture of SQL version and to manage the version with relevant tools, you must follow in the order of their release such as installing SQL Server 2005 first along with Service Pack (SP3 which is latest on SQL 2005) and then pre-requisite of SQL Server 2008, visual studio & client tools on a new machine. In any case during such installation steps it is better to uninstall everything on that machine in order to continue with fresh installation. In this case you may have problems in uninstalling SQL client tools for 2005 version or Visual Studio 2008, when I had such problem it is better to to remove SQL Server 2005 first and other software and I succeeded by using Windows Installer CleanUp utility.
It is worth mentioning about the common files issues when playing with install and uninstall steps in any case, I would prefer to refer and check the Windows Register key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion and if you see any other directory name then it is better to change the value of "CommonFilesDir (x86)" to relevant path in your system.
In this case the dependancies of SQL Server 2008 has Visual Studio 2008 SP1, .NET framework 3.5 along with Service Pack1 for the RTM edition, when you are trying to upgrade the CTP version of SQL Server or Visual studio it is better 'not-to' upgrade and rather uninstall everything with a fresh installation. So in this regard I started the usual steps of fresh installation of SQL Server 2008 install process, supplied all the setup prerequisite rules, work through the various screens till you reach the place where you expect an option to choose a custom install folder location. Here is a catch the default [Program Files...] that is required for the installation files cannot be changed and it will be shown as grey bit, as this is dependant on the windows installation on C: or D: drive. To change the file path you could do the following:
Reach to the point where they show you the install path.
Once you see the screen that shows a summary of the configuration you customized with with the path of the ConfigurationFile.ini provided.
Copy this path and open up the ConfigurationFile.ini for editing.
Search for the INSTALLSHAREDDIR value. Change whatever default path you see to whatever you want. I have to change the path to D: drive as the C: drive has less space.
If you choose "Mixed Mode" during the setup process, then make sure you add one more line. Search for SECURITYMODE="SQL" and add one more line right underneath it:
SAPWD="[Password]"
Save the .ini file and continue with the install.
After check all of the above counters at last I was able to install the client tools for SQL Server 2008 successfully and now I have SQL Server 2005 client tools too. Further I will update this blog for any solution for the problems I have faced.