system.reflecti0n.net

I Found this one out the hard way. I was upgrading a client's website to use Reporting Services so I uninstalled the plain SQL Express 2005 Sp1 to replace it with the Advanced Services package that has Reporting Services in it.

Since I was on a remote server and doing the install via Remote Desktop, when the uninstall of the SQLExpress Sp1 did not ask for a reboot, I proceeded right away to attempt the install of SQLEXPR_ADV.EXE.

You get through the first few screens just fine, then you get to select your installation options. Short pressing "Next >" on the next couple of screens gets you to the actual install and before too long you'll start seeing little-red-X icons popping up in the installer, I think the first to fail in SQL Server Native Client.

At first, I thought it was a failed uninstall because I forgot to explicitly remove the original set of SQL Express support files (MSXML 6.0, Native Client, Management Studio, etc.), among other things. Even trying to uninstall them through Add/Remove programs was producing a vague error message: "Fatal error during installation"... No help at all there.

Several re-attempts later I had a more careful look at the setup log files to try and extract some hint from when I spotted this:

"IsPendingRebootKey. Return value 3."

...So my hunch was that "3" for a return value just isn't a typical value to indicate "everything's OK"-- you'd expect a "1" or a "0" before anything else.

So I crossed my fingers and rebooted the client's server and in four minutes it was back online and I was starting up the install for the fifth time, holding my breath all the way until the installer screen started filling up with many, many green checkmarks icons and I sighed with relief.

What is odd to me is I've had so many Microsoft installs refuse to begin the install wizard if it detects a pending reboot. I could have saved alot of time and worry if I was more skeptical of Windows Installer.

Tags: sql server, remote desktop, installation, errors, reporting services

I installed SQLExpress with Advanced Services, including the Reporting Services, but I don't see the "Business Intelligence" folder in the New Projects window of Visual Studio. How to I make reports now?

The Business Intelligence stuff isn't included with the server, I guess this is because you aren't necessarily developing on the same server where you install SQL Express. What you need instead is the SQL Exress toolkit found here. This download has a more up-to-date version of Management Studio Express, plus you get Business Intelligence Designer Studio. Both are just specialized configurations of the Visual Studio IDE.

I made my first report and it works, but when I try to generate a report with a large result set the Report Server takes a long time to compile the report and often stops with an error message.

Check your System Event Log, there might be a jillion DCOM errors, Event ID 10016. This appears to be a common problem with SP1 of Windows Server 2003, and it can appear for many different DCOM applications. All because the NETWORK SERVICE logon does not have rights to launch DCOM apps anymore. I don't know if this is by design or not but there are 2 ways to fix this:

1. Run "dcomcnfg", right-click on "My Computer" and edit the default launch conditions. Add NETWORK SERVICE to the security tab and give it full rights. Then set the "Netman" DCOM Application to use the default launch rights. Note: you can't change Netman settings if its already loaded in memory, try rebooting and editing the settings before running a test report.
2. From the "Start" menu, right-click on "My Computer", select "Manage..." then expand "Local Users and Groups" find the Distributed Computing Users group, add NETWORK SERVICE to the group.

Option 2 is a catch-all solution, now by default all your DCOM apps can run using NETWORK SERVICE. This sounds just about right for me, but without knowing why its not there in the first place, I'd avoid using this solution anywhere but your DEV server.

Tags: sql server, installation, reporting services, howto