All publicly issued SQL Server 2005 security bulletins that were released before January 15, 2007 have been addressed in SP2. If you received a SQL Server 2005 or SQL Server Express hotfix after January 15, 2007, that hotfix might not be included in this release of SP2. Contact your primary support provider about obtaining the same hotfix for SQL Server Express SP2.

Every SQL Server product (including Service Packs) has its own version number. The version number of an instance of SQL Server Express can be viewed two ways:

• In SQL Server Management Studio Express Object Explorer when connected to the instance.
  
  
• By executing the query SELECT SERVERPROPERTY('ProductVersion') against the SQL Server Express instance.
  
  

The following table shows the version numbers that correspond to versions of SQL Server Express:

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The sample databases are not installed with SQL Server Express. The AdventureWorks sample database can be installed from the Microsoft Download Center Web site. The Northwind and pubs sample databases can be downloaded from the Microsoft Download Center Web site.

New and updated samples for SQL Server 2005 are available. You can download these updated samples from this Microsoft Web site. For more information about installing the updated samples, see "Installing Samples" in the updated SQL Server 2005 Books Online.

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Before installing SQL Server Express SP2, back up the master, msdb, and model databases. Installing SQL Server Express SP2 modifies the master, msdb, and model databases. This makes them incompatible with pre-SP2 versions of SQL Server Express and MSDE. Backups of these databases are required if you decide to reinstall SQL Server Express or MSDE without SP2.

It is also prudent to back up your user databases.

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If the autogrow option is not selected for the master and msdb system databases, these databases must have at least 500 KB of free space each. To verify that the databases have sufficient space, run the sp_spaceused system stored procedure on the master and msdb databases. If the unallocated space in either database is less than 500 KB, increase the size of the database. For more information, see "Expanding a Database" in SQL Server 2005 Books Online.

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Setup might fail if the service startup type for the SQLExpress service is set to Disabled.

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Before you install SP2, you should stop all applications and services that make connections to all instances of SQL Server Express being upgraded. This includes Control Panel and Add or Remove Programs

If you begin to apply SP2 without first shutting down applications and services, Setup will try to stop the SQL Server Express service. If Setup determines that other applications and services must be stopped, a warning displays the applications and services that must be stopped. After you stop these applications and services, click Try Again to resume Setup. If you cannot stop an application or service, click Continue. Setup will continue, but you might have to restart your computer after Setup finishes. If you click Cancel, the current component is not upgraded to SP2, but Setup continues.

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Setup might fail and roll back, and you receive the following error message: "An installation package for the product Microsoft SQL Server Native Client cannot be found. Try the installation again using a valid copy of the installation package 'sqlncli.msi'." To work around this problem, uninstall SQL Server Native Client by using Add or Remove Programs.

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System Configuration Checker (SCC) verifies the value of the Performance Monitor Counter registry key before SQL Server installation starts. If SCC cannot verify the existing registry key, or if SCC cannot run the Lodctr.exe system program, the SCC check fails, and Setup is blocked. To complete setup, you must manually increment the registry key.

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Windows Cryptographic Service Provider (CSP) is code that performs authentication, encoding, and encryption services that Windows-based applications access through CryptoAPI on Windows Server 2003. If the CSP service is stopped or disabled, SQL Server Setup fails and displays a Windows logo requirement message.

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Because the Microsoft Distributed Transaction Coordinator (MS DTC) is not completely configured in Windows, applications might not enlist SQL Server Express resources in a distributed transaction. This problem can affect linked servers, distributed queries, and remote stored procedures that use distributed transactions. To prevent such problems, you must fully enable MS DTC services on the server where SQL Server Express is installed.

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Setup might fail if an existing SQL Server client installation is configured to have the "force encryption" option enabled. To work around this issue, disable the option on any SQL Server clients. For Microsoft Data Access Components (MDAC) clients in SQL Server 2000, use the SQL Server 2000 Client Network Utility. For SQL Server Native Client, uninstall SQL Server Native Client by using Add or Remove Programs.

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If your computer has SQL Server 2000 Management Tools and a default instance of SQL Server Express is installed, SQL Server Setup enables you to install a SQL Server 2000 default instance. However, doing this disables the installed instance of SQL Server Express. Therefore, do not install a default instance of SQL Server 2000 when SQL Server 2000 Management Tools and a default instance of SQL Server Express already exist on the computer.

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You can install SQL Server Express on a Windows domain controller. However, it cannot run on a Windows Server 2003 domain controller as Local Service or Network Service. SQL Server service accounts should run as Windows domain user accounts. You can also install SQL Server service accounts to run as Local System. This option is not recommended.

Do not change the role of the server after you install SQL Server Express. For example, if you install SQL Server Express on a member server, do not use the Active Directory Installation Wizard (Dcpromo.exe) tool to promote the server to a domain controller. Or, if you install SQL Server Express on a domain controller, do not use the Active Directory Installation Wizard to demote the server to a member server. Changing the role of a server after you install SQL Server Express can cause loss of functionality and is not supported.

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If you install a new SQL Server Express component in maintenance mode, you are prompted for the location of Setup.exe on the SQL Server Express installation media. When you specify the location, make sure that the path includes "Setup.exe." For example, the path "D:\" fails, but "D:\Setup.exe" succeeds.

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Setup command shell scripts can generate Windows script errors when path variables contain parentheses. This occurs because command shell scripts do not support parentheses in path variables. This can occur when you install 32-bit components to the Windows on Windows (WOW64) 32-bit subsystem on a 64-bit computer. For example, the following script, with a path value of "C:\Program Files (x86)\", generates an error because the shell script interpreter misinterprets the parentheses in the expanded PATH variable as part of the IF/ELSE statement:

IF "%SOME_PATH%" == "" ( 
        SET PATH=%PATH%;%PATH_A% 
) ELSE ( 
        SET PATH=%PATH%;%PATH_B% 
) 

To work around this issue, change the script to remove the parentheses. For example:

IF "%SOME_PATH%" == "" set PATH=%PATH%;%PATH_A% 
IF NOT "%SOME_PATH%" == "" set PATH=%PATH%;%PATH_B% 

Or remove the SQL entry that contains parentheses from the path.

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This issue applies only when you upgrade an instance of MSDE 2000 to SQL Server Express SP2.

When an instance of MSDE 2000 is upgraded to SQL Server Express SP2, the database compatibility level remains at 80 to enable backward compatibility with existing MSDE 2000 applications. This backward compatibility level disables certain new functionalities of SQL Server Express. For more information, see the "sp_dbcmptlevel" reference topic in SQL Server 2005 Books Online.

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This issue applies only when you upgrade an instance of SQL Server Express to SP2.

When you upgrade an instance of SQL Server Express to SP2, Setup might fail if the system databases are installed in a directory that has a single quotation mark in the directory name. If failure occurs, you must move the system databases to a directory without a single quotation mark in the directory name. For more information about how to move system databases, see "Moving System Databases" in SQL Server 2005 Books Online.

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This issue applies only when you upgrade an instance of SQL Server Express to SP2.

When you apply SP2, Setup upgrades system databases. If you have implemented restrictions on the ALTER DATABASE syntax, upgrade might fail. Restrictions to ALTER DATABASE can include the following:

• Explicitly denying the ALTER DATABASE statement.
  
  
• A data definition language (DDL) trigger on ALTER DATABASE that rolls back the transaction that contains the ALTER DATABASE statement.
  
  

If you have restrictions on ALTER DATABASE, and Setup does not upgrade system databases to SP2, you must disable these restrictions and then re-run Setup.

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This issue applies only when you upgrade an instance of SQL Server Express to SP2.

When you apply SP2, Setup upgrades system databases. When you apply SP2 to upgrade an instance of SQL Server Express that has user instances enabled, you must use Windows Authentication. If you specify SQL Server authentication, the upgrade might fail.

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After you apply SP2 to an instance of SQL Server 2005, you will not be able to upgrade to another edition of SQL Server 2005. To upgrade an instance of SQL Server to another edition, you must perform the edition upgrade before you apply SP2. However, you can upgrade SQL Server 2005 Express Edition SP2 to SQL Server 2005 Express Edition with Advanced Services SP2.

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SQL Server Express lets non-administrator users to copy or move databases without requiring DBCreator permissions. For more information, see "User Instances for Non-Administrators" in SQL Server 2005 Books Online.

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The autorecovered shadow copy feature of the Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) has the following limitations.

Do not use RC4 encryption to protect your data in SQL Server Express. Use a block cipher such as AES 256 or Triple DES instead.

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Introduced in SQL Server Express SP1.

A mini-dump file (SQLDUMPnnnn.txt) is created in the SQL Server LOG directory whenever a DBCC CHECKDB, DBCC CHECKALLOC, DBCC CHECKFILEGROUP, or DBCC CHECKTABLE command detects a corruption error. When the Feature Usage data collection and Error Reporting features are enabled for the instance of SQL Server, the file is automatically forwarded to Microsoft. The collected data is used to improve SQL Server functionality. For more information, see "Error and Usage Report Settings" in SQL Server 2005 Books Online.

The dump file contains the results of the DBCC command and additional diagnostic output. The file has restricted discretionary access- control lists (DACLs). Access is limited to the SQL Server service account and members of the sysadmin role. By default, the sysadmin role contains all members of the Windows BUILTIN\Administrators group and the local administrator's group. The DBCC command does not fail if the data collection process fails.

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Introduced in SQL Server Express SP1.

When a batch is completed, the Database Engine automatically rolls back any active uncommittable transactions. Before the release of SQL Server Express SP1, uncommittable transactions had to be rolled back manually.

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SQL Server Express can serve as a Subscriber for all kinds of replication, but replication is not installed by default for this edition.

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Windows Vista users that are members of BUILTIN\Administrators are not automatically added to the sysadmin fixed server role when they connect to SQL Server Express. Only Windows Vista users that have been explicitly added to a server-level administrator role can administer SQL Server Express. Any member of the Built-In\Users group can connect to the SQL Server Express instance, but they will have limited permissions to perform database tasks. For this reason, users whose SQL Server Express privileges are inherited from BUILTIN\Administrators and Built-In\Users in previous releases of Windows must be explicitly granted administrative privileges in instances of SQL Server Express running on Windows Vista.

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SQL Server 2005 installation fails if the collation is case sensitive and the computer name contains lowercase letters or special characters.  To fix, rename the computer name to use only uppercase letters.