Category: Database

I was trying to do upgrade of SQL Express 2005 to SP1 version on one of development machines.

Each time, attempt failed with not-so-helpful-message:

SQL Server Setup did not have the administrator permissions required to rename a file: C:Program FilesMicrosoft SQL ServerMSSQL.1MSSQLTemplate Datamssqlsystemresource1.ldf. To continue, verify that the file exists, and either grant administrator permissions to the account currently running Setup or log in with an administrator account. Then run SQL Server Setup again.

Quick Google did the trick: solution was described in KB 918693 (to be precise: workaround).

However, at first glance, I failed to execute workaround – there are couple of errors in mentioned article:

1. If typing SQLCMD do not connect to local instance of SQL 2005 Express, try with full name of instance:

SQLCMD COMPUTER_NAMESQLEXPRESS

2. “beautified” quotes in article’s code won’t exactly help; so, if you want quick copy / paste, use code from here:

EXEC sp_configure 'user instances enabled',0
GO
RECONFIGURE
GO

3. Step three, apart from quotes, has one column name wrong, so again, use this code:

SELECT owning_principal_name, instance_pipe_name 
FROM sys.dm_os_child_instances WHERE heart_beat = 'alive'
GO

4. And here is script for final step, after reinstallation:

EXEC sp_configure 'user instances enabled',1
GO
RECONFIGURE
GO

BTW, how can I report errors spotted in KB article to Microsoft? Anyone?