How to Install Microsoft SQL Server Express

So many of you have asked me to create a video to show how you actually set up SQL Server and load the database and do all of that. So I wanted to take the time to actually create that. There's been a ton of questions that have come in to the Q&A section or directly messages, direct messages to me through Udemy. So I wanted to take the time to, to go through and show you that. So I've just downloaded. I haven't installed, but I've just finished downloading SQL Server 2012 Express and I also downloaded. The Adventureworks 2012 data via the link that I provided to you all in the course. So I'm just going to extract that now. I should be able to minimize at least edge. So it is an MDF file. So as I say in the instructions, I want you to copy that or you can move it, but I'm just going to copy it for the sake of simplicity. You're going to go to the C Drive program files. Excuse me. That's not right. Program files x86. Right. So we've extracted the Adventureworks data. We're just going to kind of hold on to that for now until we install SQL Server. Okay. So I'm going to head back to my downloads section and I'm going to execute. The installation. File here. Let it take its time extracting. Okay. Because when this comes up. And there's going to be a lot of thinking throughout this process. So just be patient. I'm also running on a this on a remote VM that is not the most powerful. So it might take a little bit longer than it may on your machine. But you do want to notice that this will pop up. That's a good thing. So now I'm going to click on new SQL Server standalone installation or Add features. Going to do this rule check. See if there are any issues. Make sure that you're working on the right. System settings and that there's some basic checks that are being done. Look, I accept you can choose to send feature data usage if you'd like. Press next. And it may ask you to install with some product updates that it found online. Just leave that as is and hit next. It shouldn't be anything too crazy. Finally finished extracting them. So now it's installing the updates. Again, if you're getting a newer version of SQL, you may have to you may not have to wait as much. Older versions with maybe some service packed updates. You may have to add some more information and it might take a little bit longer to update. So in this next part, we want to make sure that management tools. And database engine services are, at a minimum selected. You can leave client connectivity as is press next. Let's leave the named instance as the default name. Uh, changing that is going to make it a little bit more difficult to remember some things. I just always stick with the default instance for local settings for an installation in a corporate environment, that's different, but for this purpose of learning and things like that, just stick with the default instance, just click next. Again, stick with the default settings. Now on this screen. If your username. Is not added to this list. When you get to this step, be sure to click add current user. So if you're not here when you get to the screen automatically be sure to click add current user and then just simply press next. Uh, you can choose to send windows if there are issues, but this is just to kind of show you. So I'm just going to leave it as is and hit next. It's going to do last little look, which was this step, and then it's just going to start installing. So barring any issues which are rare if you get to this point, because usually some rules have already been checked. So you should be ready to go and it should just continue to install at this point. So I'm not going to have you watch this whole thing install. But again, if you've gotten to this point, you should be good to go and it should be able to install on your end. So in the next section, I'm going to come back and I'm going to show you how to get everything started for the first time and load the sample database that we're working with.