SQL 2008 Express Management

Somtimes the day begins as the last day ends... in this morning my fellow here at mightycare solutions tried to install the new vCenter Orchestrator for an enterprise customer. Because of the limited functionality (it is an proof-of-concept) he decides to use SQL 2008 Express with the SQL Express 2008 Management Studio. At frist we would install the SQL Server (like known from SQL deployments) and afterwards we decide to install the Management Studio.

After the installation of several features (.NET, .NET update, and so on) we install the SQL Server 2008 Express and start the installation of the Management Studio Express. But what is that? After choosing the "Add features to an existing instance..." we can not select the "Management Tools - Basic" option!



After a few moments of investigating we try to use the other, in my eyes senseless, option "Perform a new installation of SQL Server 2008" and what did my swollen eyes see? An option called "Management Tools - Basic"!

So i think this is another example of user experience at Microsoft...