How to Upgrade SQL Server Express Edition SP2 to Standard Edition ?

A ZENworks partner called up today that they are facing installation problem with our ZENworks Patch Management 6.4 products. I asked him what sort of problem he was facing as the ZENworks Patch Management 6.4 installation was pretty straight forward. You basically need a Windows 2003 Server SP1 / SP2 with Internet Information Server (IIS) service installed. After further probing, I finally found out his root of problem. He was facing upgrading the Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Express Edition SP2 that comes as part of the ZENworks Patch Management installation. The challenge is Microsoft does not provide overlay SQL Server 2005 Standard or Enterprise Edition SP2. The only setup installation is the default SQL Server 2005 Standard or Enterprise Edition released year 2005. In this case you will see a "Warning" for SQL Server Edition Operating System Compatibility that warns about the incompatibility of the version you are upgrading on the System Configuration Check page.

In this tutorial I will guide you step by step how to upgrade from Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Express Edition SP1/SP2 to Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Standard or Enterprise Edition.

1) Firstly make sure you have the SQL Server 2005 media at hand. Insert the CD/DVD and cancel the autorun setup screen.

2) Open up a DOS Command window and drill down to the folder containing the executable setup.exe. Enter the following case sensitive command at the DOS command prompt:

D:\setup.exe SKUUPGRADE=1

3) On the Registration Information page, enter identification information used to register your copy of SQL Server.

4) On the Components to Install page, select Database Services, Reporting Services, and Workstation components, Books Online and development tools if you are upgrading all components together.

5) On the Instance Name page, click Named instance, and then choose the SQLEXPRESS instance you are upgrading.

You will then be shown the screen shot below, at this point make sure you click on the "Installed instances" button highlighted in red.

Now select the OFFICESERVERS instance then click ok...


The next screen simply confirms that SQL has indeed found SQL Express installed on your system.

You can check to make sure that SQL Express can in fact be upgraded by clicking on the Details button, this will display the screen shown below


At this point you can simply close the above window and select OK until the setup is finished. Voila! There you have it.

Upgrade Notes

After upgrading to SQL Server 2005 Standard or Enterprise Edition from another edition of SQL Server 2005, you must re-apply any hotfix or service pack updates to the upgraded SQL Server instance