How does IA determine if SQL Express is already installed?

Steve · Post by **Steve** » Thu Apr 30, 2009 7:49 pm

Hoping that someone can tell how me how the IA's SQLExpress 2005 'Application Runtime' determines if SQL Express 2005 has already been installed on a workstation.
I need to know this because I have a machine on which SQL Express has been uninstalled, however when I run my InstallAware setup (which includes the SQLExpress 2005 Application Runtime), it will not reinstall SQL Express.
I imagine that InstallAware is checking the Windows Registry for the presence of a specific entry, however I cannot determine what registry entry InstallAware is looking for in order to determine this.

If I understood how IA determines whether or not to run the SQL Express installation, then I could devise a workaround

Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
Steve

MichaelNesmith · Post by **MichaelNesmith** » Thu Apr 30, 2009 8:25 pm

The default scripts check for the service name, unless you customized them.

Steve · Post by **Steve** » Fri May 01, 2009 5:40 pm

Hi Michael,
Thanks for the quick reply.
Can you please tell me how/where it checks for the service name. I cannot find anything is my project that indicates where the script does this. Is it looking for this information in the Registry somewhere and if so, where is the registry key located?

Thanks in advance
Steve

ulrichard · Post by **ulrichard** » Mon May 04, 2009 2:43 am

Hi Steve,

check the script "checksql2005" that was automatically added to your project.
The first line checks if a windows service by a given name is installed. I guess, it does this with the windows service API without directly reading the registry.

Rgds
Richard