As someone who benefits greatly from the myITforum community and the Blogs therein I was interested in the blogging software – Community Server
Having recently setup a personal learning lab 2003 SP2 test server with DNS, DHCP, WSUS 3.0, Microsoft Desktop Deployment and SQL 2005 Express I was eager to try out the Community Server software.
Well one major problem, I could not get past the Database install step and gave up.
Several weeks later and having learned a bit more about SQL 2005 during installs of Microsoft Desktop Deployment workbench and SQL 2005 SP2 I was ready to give the Community Server install another shot. Once again no go… no meaningful errors on screen, no problems with 3 other installs that required DB creation and connectivity. Then I remembered an issue with my MDD install, the name of the server. The community Server install defaults to “localhost” which is what usually worked for me with SQL 2000 and always works for me on my MySQL websites. So I tried my SQL host name, IP address etc. No luck. Then I tried the full SQL 2005 name “Serverhostname\SQLEXPRESS” and viola I’m in! This is the exact opposite of MDD, which requires the hostname only!
The Community Server install using SQL Express 2005 requires the full SQL server name like this
“Serverhostname\SQLEXPRESS”
This was exactly the opposite of my Microsoft Desktop Deployment install only days earlier which failed until I used “Serverhostname” only.
Additionally:
– Community server requires you enable “Named Pipes” under “SQL 2005 Network Configuration -> Protocols for SQLEXPRESS”
– Make sure during your SQL 2005 install you have allowed for “Remote Connectivity”, if not you can run an upgrade/repair install and enable.
