Pauly and the Fatman

Do you need Microsoft sample code, patches, toolkits? Then, checkout www.codeplex.com. The codeplex is a microsoft site used to store all of the goodies you need. for example, you can download the SQL Express 2005 Advanced Services SP2 which will add SSMS (SQL Services Management Studio) Express and Full text Indexing to SQL Express. Check out the codeplex!

When you install Visual Studio it install SQL Server Express, but not SQL Server Management Studio (why anybody would ever want this configuration is beyond me). My workstation had Visual Studio 2008 and SQL Server Express on Vista. As many people know get SSMS installed with this pre-existing configuration is a pain in the butt. This approach worked:

1. Control Panel|Programs|Uninstall
2. Select Microsoft SQL Server 2005 (we won't uninstall express)
3. When the uninstall option pops up de-select everything and make sure workstation components is checked (only)
4. Let the uninstall run.
5. Place the SQL Server disk in the drive, navigate to E:\ENGLISH\SQL2005\ENTERPRISE\32BIT\Tools\Setup
6. Double click on SqlRun_Tools.msi and double-click
7. Select the components you'd like to install.

This seems to work just fine.