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I've previously in my setup installed SQL Server Express 2005. Now I've switched to SQL Server Express 2008. I updated the command line parameters to those documented for the latter. If the comp already has SQL Server Express 2008 installed, my installer should create a new instance.

The command line parameters are as follows:

/ACTION=Install /FEATURES=SQLEngine /QS /INSTANCENAME=ABCD /SECURITYMODE=SQL /SAPWD=CunningPassword

The requested instance name does not exist on the target machine. This will end in an error -2068643838. The logs show the following error:

"No features were installed during the setup execution. The requested features may already be installed."

If I remove the /QS parameter and try to install interactively, I'll get as far as the Feature Selection page. The UI shows three options, Instance Features, Shared Features and Redistributable Features. Whatever I select, clicking Next results in the same error (There are validation errors on this page).

Any ideas anyone?

Skyhawk
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  • This link suggests that SQL Express doesn't support multiple instances: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/482408/limitations-of-running-multiple-instances-of-ms-sql-express – djangofan Jun 17 '10 at 19:31
  • @djangofan SQL Express supports up to 50 instances in a machine. https://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/aspnet/en-US/7e250360-d544-448c-98f9-517580c718d9/can-you-have-multiple-instances-of-sql-server-express-run-on-window-server?forum=sqlexpress – Jalal Apr 06 '18 at 09:00

2 Answers2

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if you run Setup interactively with the /FEATURES flag set, the installer will still give precedence to the command line parameters over what you select in the wizard.

Also - if an instance by the name of ABCD already exists on the server, you need to remove that instance before your script will work. You are telling it to install the database engine for instance ABCD, it is then checking and finding that the instance already has that feature installed.

Brian Knight
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My understanding is that there can be an install config file that gets created after an initial command line attempt. Down in the Bootstrap or Bootstrap\log folder. Hope this helps.

jl.
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