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, making 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 installing 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 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 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 by using 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 Native Client, uninstall SQL 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 will enable you to install a SQL Server 2000 default instance. However, if you do this, it will disable 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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It is possible to 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. It is also possible to install SQL Server service accounts to run as Local System, but 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) 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 will be prompted for the location of Setup.exe on the SQL Server Express installation media. When specifying the location, make sure that the path includes "Setup.exe." For example, the path "D:\" will fail, but "D:\Setup.exe" will succeed.

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Setup command shell scripts can generate Windows script errors when path variables contain parentheses. Command shell scripts do not support parentheses in path variables. So when you install 32-bit components to the Windows on Windows (WOW64) 32-bit subsystem on a 64-bit computer, you might see this error. 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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When an instance of SQL Server Express that hosts the report server database for an instance of Reporting Services is uninstalled by running Setup at the command prompt with the SAVESYSDB parameter, the report server database files are left behind with the rest of the system database files. By default, these files are named ReportServer$Instancename and ReportServer$InstancenameTempdb. If you then reinstall SQL Server Express with the USESYSDB Setup parameter and specify that the instance host the report server database, Setup will be unable to re-create these database files because they already exist.

To correct this problem, use one of the following methods.

• Drop report server databases before uninstalling using SAVESYSDB.
  
  
• Do not install Reporting Services together with SQL Server when you use the SAVESYSDB Setup parameter.
  
  
• Use the RSDATABASENAME Setup parameter to specify a new name for the report server database when you install Reporting Services.
  
  

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This issue applies only when you upgrade an instance of SQL Server Desktop Engine (also known as MSDE 2000) to SQL Server Express with Advanced Services.

When an instance of MSDE 2000 is upgraded to SQL Server Express with Advanced Services, 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 with Advanced Services. For more information, see the "sp_dbcmptlevel" reference topic in SQL Server 2005 Books Online.

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This issue only applies when you upgrade an instance of SQL Server Express to SQL Server Express with Advanced Services.

When you upgrade an instance of SQL Server Express to SQL Server Express with Advanced Services, Setup may 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 SQL Server Express with Advanced Services.

When you upgrade an instance of SQL Server Express to SQL Server Express with Advanced Services, Setup upgrades system databases. If you have implemented restrictions on the ALTER DATABASE syntax, upgrade may fail. Restrictions to ALTER DATABASE may 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 cannot upgrade system databases, 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 SQL Server Express with Advanced Services.

When you apply SP2, Setup upgrades the system databases. When you apply SP2 to upgrade an instance of SQL Server Express, you must use Windows authentication. If you specify SQL Server authentication, even if you use the parameter sapwd, the upgrade will fail.

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

If you upgrade a report server instance in SQL Server Express with Advanced Services to SP2, and the report server was installed by using the files-only option and never configured for operation, you will encounter an upgrade blocking error that states the report server virtual directory is not configured. To resolve this error, either configure or uninstall the report server, and then re-run SP2 Setup.

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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.

When upgrading SQL Server 2005 Express Advanced SP1 to SQL Server 2005 Express Advanced SP2 with the Reporting Services option selected to be installed, you get a message indicating that the upgrade failed. To fix, install SQL Server 2005 Express Advanced SP2 by using the command line. For more information, see How to: Install SQL Server 2005 from the Command Prompt and How to: Upgrade a SQL Server Express Report Server to Other SQL Server Editions.

SQL Server Express lets non-administrator users copy or move databases (by using Xcopy deployment) without requiring DBCreator user rights. For more information, see "User Instances for Non-Administrators" in SQL Server 2005 Books Online.

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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 this release, uncommittable transactions had to be rolled back manually.

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

The following considerations apply when you use Full text Search:

• Full text Search is not supported on a SQL Server Express user instance (RANU).
  
  
• If you install SQL Server Express under the Network Service account, you cannot use Full Text Search capability until you restart the computer.
  
  

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Do not use RC4 encryption to protect your data in SQL Server 2005. Use a block cipher such as AES 256 or Triple DES instead.

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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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If you upgrade to SQL Server Express from an instance of MSDE that is acting as a Publisher, publications are not removed. SQL Server Express cannot act as a Publisher; therefore, the publications that remain cannot be used on SQL Server Express. For information about how to remove publications, see "Removing Replication" in SQL Server 2005 Books Online.

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Windows Vista includes a new feature, User Account Control (UAC), that helps administrators manage their use of elevated privileges. When running on Windows Vista, administrators do not use their administrative privileges by default. Instead they perform most actions as standard (non-administrative) users, temporarily assuming their administrative privileges only when necessary.

UAC causes some known issues. For more information, see the following Web pages on TechNet:

• Windows Vista: User Account Control
  
  
• Windows Vista User Account Control Step by Step Guide
  
  

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.

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