There used to be a time when SQL Server was a database engine. Setup of the product was easy. You told it where to install, then you set up the service accounts. Over time, the feature set of SQL Server grew and it became more of a suite of products. This involved some more installation steps with more information to be gathered.
Somewhere around 2008, a significant change occurred with the SQL Server setup. It involved pre-install checks, rule checks, confirmations, and other stages that significantly slowed down the install process. What used to be a two minute wizard is now a process that can easily consume 15 minutes. Add to the mix the growth of the feature set of SQL Server and the full install could take hours.
Following along the left of this post is a screenshot of the setup process. We have three rule checks, one before you start, one after choosing the features to install, and one after you configure the features you want to install. For my install, I chose “All features with defaults” thinking it would be the fastest and easiest. Nope, I still had to run through all the steps.
The most annoying change to the install process is the rule checks. Even if everything checks out, you still have to click Next on the wizard. If it’s all good, why do I need to review it? As mentioned before, this happens three times during installation. It’s almost as if the setup program is saying, “Look at how hard I’m working. See, I made you a big list of everything I did.” It’s like an employee that isn’t confident of his work and has to document everything he does to justify what he’s done.
The feature growth of SQL Server has become outrageous as well: Analysis Services, Reporting Services, Distributed Relay, Failover Clusters. I would be very interested in seeing if SQL Server Express is selected more often just because the feature set is more realistic for most projects.
I am also curious to see if this post’s text is longer than the installation steps for SQL Server. And I even tried to be more verbose so I could fill space.
And as it turns out, I didn’t write enough and the next post continued right next to the image. I guess that’s a slight issue with the WordPress theme template.