SQL Server 2008 on virtual Windows 8

As preparation for a study group at work for MCTS 70-448 „Microsoft SQL Server 2008 – Business Intelligence Development and Maintenance“ I install SQL Server 2008 R2 Developer Edition on a virtual Windows 8 Enterprise Edition.
The virtualizer is VMware Player. Not because I have evaluated the possibilities on other products, but because I am used to VMware products.

I choose not to use Easy Install

I once tried to map the ISO file in the wizard but even the wizard recognizes Windows 8 and I copied the license code in the VMware Player Easy Install, I get this error message from Windows Setup several times:

I guess that the issue is that Windows 8 is validating licence key against a licence server, and I don't have such one in my study.

The guest is defined with a larger virtual disk than default and in one file on host.

Also the guest is given 5120 MB (5 GB) of guest memory.

After the guest is defined the guest CD drive is mapped to Windows 8 ISO file and the installation when the guest is started.

The Windows 8 Action Center tells me that the installation it must be activated, but this fails with a error message about a DNS name:

The real issue is that I do not have a Key Management Server (KMS) in my study. This is described in KB929826, where some solutions also are given. In my case method 1 works fine.
Actually I started a PowerShell as administrator, but still it works.
Microsoft is talking a lot about PowerShell, but slmgr is a vbs-file executed by Windows Script Host (WSH). This is indicated by the success message, where the title of message box is „Windows Script Host“.

From then it is a normal SQL Server 2008 installation with the components described in the MCTS 70-448 Training Kit.

Windows Server 8 and SQL Server 2008 R2

Together with the very public release of Windows 8, Microsoft released Windows Server 8.
Earlier this year I attended TechEd North America, and asked the Microsoft people about a "Windows Server Next", but nobody could say anything. Actually most of the answers were like "I don't know anything about a new Windows Server version.". On the other hand there were a lot about SQL Server "Denali" and Visual Studio Next. The three products usually are released in a new major version rather close together.
But now the preview for Windows Server 8 is here. I got mine from my MSDN subscription. It is not general available like the Windows 8 desktop edition.

Installing Windows Server 8 on vmware was quite simple and without challenges. The installation was done on vmware workstation 8 as Windows 8 the other day.
I installed the full version. Windows Core I will take a look at another time. Especially when I have figured out how to install SQL Server "Denali" on Windows Server 8.

After the initial installation when the system started for the first time, I took a quick look at the used storage.

The storage amount used for the Windows installation is ok. This is nice when you consider consolidation by server virtualization.

Installing SQL Server 2008 R2 (Enterprise Edition x64) requires some .NET and Windows Installer.

This is handled by the installation. Just click OK. The screen shows nothing for a minute or two, but some activity can be spotted in the Task Manager.

In this case I installed Database Services with Fulltext Services, Reporting Services, Integration Services,  Business Intelligence Development Studio and all Management Tools.
After the installation, a little more store is used.

More precisely 5.9 GB are used by the SQL Server installation.


The new Start design I am working on getting used to.

In general the SQL Server 2008 behaves normally.

BTW - When I activated Windows Update, there were 13 critical updates for Windows Server Preview.

SQL Server on Windows 8

The next Windows has just been released as a preview, both as desktop and as server.
Downloading from MSDN took some time. It looked like I was not the only one downloading ;-)

When I tried to install the Windows 8 desktop as a virtual computer i vmware, the initial boot failed with a "HAL_INITIALIZATION_FAILED".
A little browsing using my favorite web search engine, I found several  indications that the problem is a new HAL (Hardware Abstraction Layer) in Windows 8. A HAL that vmware 7.n can not handle...
The next version of vmware (8.0) was released 2011-09-13, but the licensing is not open until the week of 2011-09-19.
Still it was no problem to acquire a trial license and install it (vmware workstation) on my desktop running Windows 7 Ultimate x64.

On the new vmware the Windows 8 installation went without any problems. :-)

The vmware tools also installed on the virtual Windows 8 without any issues.
One thing I learned the hard way is that installing the vmware tools locks the GUI on the virtual Windows 8.

I tried to install SQL Server "Denali", but it failed right in the beginning without any clues. No folders are created, and no entries are made in the registry.

The installation of SQL Server 2008 R2 (Developer Edition, x64) went as on Windows 7. Installing Service Pack 1 went as normal.
Also it looks like everything is running fine. :-)

The new Start menu in Windows 8 holds the SQL Server 2008 icons like this:

From a SQL Server perspective, I have not found a major difference between Windows 7 and Windows 8.