Installing Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Express Edition SP2 on Windows XP Embedded Systems

8/22/2007

Microsoft Corporation

May 2007

Summary

This article lists supported scenarios for Microsoft® SQL Server™ 2005 Express Edition Service Pack 2 on Microsoft Windows® XP Embedded systems, and describes how to include the necessary prerequisites in your Windows XP Embedded images to install and deploy SQL Server 2005 Express Edition SP2 on Windows XP Embedded devices.

Introduction

Supported SQL Server Express 2005 Version and Scenarios

Including SQL Server 2005 Express Edition in Windows XP Embedded Images

Introduction

SQL Server 2005 Express Edition Service Pack 2 is the latest version of Microsoft SQL Desktop Engine (MSDE) and is a free, easy-to-use, lightweight, and embeddable version of SQL Server 2005. It is a suitable choice for Windows XP Embedded devices that require a lightweight database engine and that may need to connect to back end database servers.

SQL Server Express Edition includes powerful features such as:

  • SQL Server 2005 Reporting Services, a server-based platform for creating and delivering traditional and interactive reports.
  • SQL Server 2005 Management Studio Express, a graphical management tool for easy management of your database.

Using SQL Server 2005 Express Edition ensures that your applications also work with the rest of the Microsoft SQL Server product family, providing an easy upgrade path to full-featured versions of SQL Server.

For more information about SQL Server 2005 Express Edition, see this Microsoft Web site.

Supported SQL Server Express 2005 Version and Scenarios

SQL Server 2005 Express Edition Service Pack 2 is officially supported on Windows XP Embedded Service Pack 2 Feature Pack 2007.

Most features and scenarios for SQL Server 2005 Express Edition are supported on the embedded platform, with the following exceptions:

  • User instances
  • Multi-instance mode
  • Distributed Queries
  • External stored procedures
  • Service Broker
  • Common language runtime (CLR) integration

To learn more about these features in Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Express Edition Books Online, see this Microsoft Web site.

Including SQL Server 2005 Express Edition in Windows XP Embedded Images

SQL Server 2005 Express Edition has not been componentized for Windows XP Embedded, so you will need to ensure that its dependencies are included in the image and then install the product on the final image. For your convenience, Windows XP Embedded SP2 Feature Pack 2007 provides a macro component that automatically includes the dependencies for SQL Server 2005 Express Edition in your image.

To include the macro component in your image and install SQL Server 2005 Express Edition on your device

  1. Install Windows XP Embedded SP2 Feature Pack 2007 components in your development database. Instructions for this can be found in the Installation Guide provided with Windows XP Embedded SP2 Feature Pack 2007.

  2. From Microsoft Windows Embedded Studio, start Target Designer and open your image configuration.

  3. In the Component Browser pane, expand the Software node, then the Test & Development node to view the list of available components.

  4. In the Test and Development node, double-click the Microsoft SQL Express 2005 Macro component to include it in your image.

  5. Press the F5 key or click Check Dependencies in the Configuration menu. This will bring up the Dependency Check dialog box and automatically include all dependencies necessary to support SQL Server 2005 Express Edition.

    Note

    SQL Server 2005 Express Edition requires Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0, which will be automatically added during this step.

  6. Press the F7 key, or click Build Target Image in the Configuration menu to build your target image.

Once the image is built and deployed on your device, you can install SQL Express 2005 Express Edition on your image after the First Boot Agent (FBA) completes, just as you would install it on a Windows XP Professional operating system.

To evaluate, test and commercially ship SQL Server 2005 Express Edition SP2 on your Windows XP Embedded images, you can download the installation package from this Microsoft Web site after accepting the redistributing EULA.

Conclusion

Following the procedures in this document, you have created a Windows XP Embedded image that supports the installation of SQL Server 2005 Express Edition.