Visual Studio and SQL Server - correct installation sequence?

Question

I am rebuilding my development machine. This issue is not new to me, but I don\'t remember the solution. I started with SQL 2008 Developer, then VS 2008 Pro, then the SQL SP1, t

Answer 1

It turns out I was missing 2 important pieces of information in my question that make this installation such a pain:

• I was installing the 64 bit version of SQL Server
• I was installing to a non-standard location (i.e. the D: drive, because C: is an SSD with not all that much space)

This was not successful. Here is what I ended up doing in my first (second, and third) attempt:

• Install VS 2008 Professional on D:
• Install VS 2008 SP 1
• Install SQL Server 2008 Developer Edition (instance and shared components on D:)
• Install SQL Server SP 1

Apparently VS 2008 Pro does not require a database. I am not sure why I remembered that it does. While the Visual Studio installation was eventless, I encountered the following errors during the SQL Server installation:

The INSTANCESHAREDWOWDIR command line value was not specified.

I was able to resolve that be starting setup from the command line (thanks to this MSDN forum post):

setup.exe /INSTALLSHAREDWOWDIR="D:\Program Files(x86)\Microsoft SQL 
Server" /INSTALLSHAREDDIR="D:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server"
/ACTION=install

Then towards the end of the installation, I got this error:

Upgrade Failed due to the following Error.The error code is :-2147467259.Message:Unspecified error

There is no solution, but a workaround, described in this post on connect.microsoft.com. It consists of copying a VS config file around before and after the installation, and re-running the installer just for BIDS (which is the one component that failed).

The SQL Server SP1 installation ran without issue. VS Studio, when trying to load a solution with an SSIS project, still threw the error that I posted in my original question.

I had ignored this error that popped up towards the end of the BIDS installation:

Microsoft Visual Studio Tools for Applications 2.0 Cannot find one or more components. Please reinstall the application.

However, there was no error in the install log and it completed "successfully", so I thought it would be ok to ignore the error.

It seems that my configuration is not possible (but I know with certainty that I had the 2005 versions of VS and SQL Server on a D: drive).

I uninstalled everything once again, manually deleted whatever folders were left, and reinstalled on the C: drive, including the SQL Server shared components. I put the instance folder on the D:.

• Install VS 2008 Professional on C:
• Install VS 2008 SP 1
• Install SQL Server 2008 Developer Edition (instance on D:, shared components on C:)
• Install SQL Server SP 1

This time everything installed and I can open my SSIS project.