I ran into a bit of weirdness yesterday when trying to install SQL Server 2008. I have Visual Studio 2008 installed as well as a couple of the Visual Studio 2008 Express products (for testing solutions for the Coding4Fun site and the upcoming book). I installed Visual Studio 2008 SP1 and all went as planned. After looking at the Help –> About screens, Visual Studio and all of the Express products showed the proper version tag: 9.030729.1 SP1. So I figured all the products were updated and good to go.
Next I tried to install SQL Server 2008 and got an error stating Rule “Previous releases of Microsoft Visual Studio 2008” failed. I re-installed SP1 figuring something had gone wrong, but no dice. After digging through the SQL Server 2008 install logs I realized what was happening. The installer was using the HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\DevDiv\XXX\Servicing\9.0\SP keys to determine if SP1 had been installed and the registry settings were set …
Read More