In case you missed my previous post, you can now download CTP3. The delivery mechanism this time is a little different. Instead of downloading an ISO, you download a very small EXE, two .box files, and an HTML file that currently contains a set of links that aren't fully functional. You run the EXE by double-clicking it, and it extracts the box files into a folder in the same location called SQLFULL_x64_ENU:

Don't do what I did. In order to easily expose the CTP to all of my virtual machines (including Server Core), I took the four files and made an ISO file. When I tried the above process using the ISO file exposed to the VM as a DVD drive, it ran through the unloading process, then went away silently. I tried this a couple of times before I realized what was going on – Windows will not let you write output to a "DVD" – and that the unloading was being attempted in place (and I haven't examined the exe to determine if there are any arguments you could pass to tell it where to send the output – I tried /x, which is the argument used for cumulative updates, and that didn't work). I'm kind of surprised that there isn't a prompt for output location, and I'm absolutely amazed that the unloading process whistles along happily – with no error message or any indication whatsoever that it couldn't create the output folder or extract the files there.

Anyway, now I am off to make an ISO of the *result* of that operation. The lesson here is, copy the four files to a location where you have at least 6GB of free space, since you won't be able to run the command from one location and have it extract the contents to another.

[Also, please be sure to check out my notes on operating system support and prerequisites; also, consider installing Denali in a virtual machine, especially if you are worried about compatibility with your existing applications (Visual Studio, BIDS, etc.) or other instances of SQL Server.]

Once you have done that and you have your SQLFULL_x64_ENU folder ready, double-click SETUP.EXE. You will eventually be right back in to the SQL Server Installation Center you know and love. Click on the Installation tab (for any of the following screen shots, click on them to embiggen in a new window):

Then click on "New SQL Server stand-alone installation or add features to an existing installation" – you'll go through Setup Support Rules, which will hopefully all pass with flying colors:

(Remember to not close the Installation Center dialog until after setup is complete. This window needs to remain open as it keeps the temporary folder used by setup, though it can be minimized. See Connect #388671 for more details.)

Click OK. Next you will have the choice to enter a product key or choose a free edition. It is pre-selected to Evaluation edition:

Click Next. Check the box that says you accept the license terms. I would never suggest to not read them from start to finish, but I'll let you guess how long I spend on this screen. (I usually do uncheck the box about sending feature usage data to Microsoft.)

Click Next. The Install Setup Files dialog checks for updated setup files; is it possible this is the first clue that we are going to have automatic slipstreaming in Denali? I hope so:

Then shortly after my first "SQUEEEEE" moment, I get my first "BOOOOO" moment:

Click OK. Sheepishly. In fact, I implore you to click OK sheepishly. 🙂

Now we see the Setup Support Rules dialog. Click Next unless you want to see the details (or any of the rules failed):

Next we choose the Installation Type. Since this is my first taste of CTP3, I will choose the [Perform a new installation of SQL Server "Denali" CTP3] option:

Click Next. n the Setup Role tab I'm going to keep things simple and choose the [SQL Server Feature Installation] option:

Click Next. On the Feature Selection tab, again for simplicity, I'm going to choose Database Engine Services, Books Online Components, and both Management Tools options (see more about Books Online toward the end of this post). I'm tempted to add DQS and Distributed Replay here, but my first instance is going to be pretty bare bones (note that if you have BIDS, Visual Studio, or Juneau from a previous CTP installed, you'll want to select as many of those options that seem relevant – most importantly Business Intelligence Development Studio):

Click Next. We'll let the Installation Rules succeed (unless you are unlucky):

Click Next. Now we select our instance name. I'm way beyond the ability to choose a default instance here, and I'm not all that creative:

Click Next. Simple summary screen showing disk space requirements. I clearly need to learn to build bigger VMs:

Click Next. You can change the service accounts and startup type on the Server Configuration tab. For local testing instances I rarely find it necessary to do this, especially during setup, since they can be configured later if need be. I also don't touch the Collation tab, leaving the default in place (though for pure development environments I will probably be getting more in the habit of switching to case sensitive):

Click Next. On the Database Engine Configuration screen, you can change to mixed authentication, add an sa password, and add yourself and other Windows accounts as SQL Server Administrators:

And on the Data Directories tab, you could change the location for new databases, tempdb and backups. On a normal system I would be changing these appropriately, but since I am on a VM with a single C:\ drive, I'm a little limited to what I can do to spread this I/O around. Thankfully I am not planning to do any heavy activity on my workstation:

I'm not going to use FILESTREAM for this instance, once again for simplicity, so I'm going to leave this tab alone. Click Next. 

The Error Reporting dialog allows you to choose whether to send error reports to Microsoft. I'm going to leave this checked (though I unchecked it earlier in the beta cycle because I assumed there would be a lot more "that's already on the books to get fixed" type of exceptions):

Click Next. We get another rules screen, this time the Installation Configuration Rules screen. These might fail if you're still using FAT32, for example, so I can't imagine too many people will get blocked here:

Click Next. Finally we are at a summary screen which lists all of the options we've chosen and what SQL Server setup thinks it's going to try to do:

Click Install. Progress is indicated (you'll see various status message whiz by, faster than you can read them, for about 10 minutes – or less if you are on an SSD):

And finally, completion:

Click OK, click Close, and sheepishly (yes, sheepishly) reboot. Now you can launch Management Studio and start sniffing around:

Note that if you start sniffing around before you've rebooted, you may get some strange errors when trying to connect:

I know you're impatient, but just reboot. I also noticed that I had to manually start the service for the new CTP3 instance, even though it had been set to start automatically. Not sure if I just didn't wait long enough, but starting it manually worked fine.

Finally, I am finding the following error occurs when I try to launch a new query by right-clicking a database or server in Object Explorer and selecting New Query (if I try to modify an existing stored procedure, the dialog is identical, but it's a yellow exclamation point instead of a red x):

The error dialog is only slightly different (an additional top-level error message, and now it isn't an error, it's an informational dialog) if I try File > New >Database Engine Query:

And the error is once again an error, but still a slightly different dialog (I can no longer copy the text) if I use Ctrl + N or try to open an existing .sql file using File/Open:

For searchy goodness, here is the text of the error message:

TITLE: Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio
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Failed to create new SQL Server script.
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ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:
Method not found: 'System.Collections.Generic.List`1<System.Object> Microsoft.SqlServer.Management.UI.VSIntegration.GenericUtilityView.get_OpenedEditors()'. (mscorlib)
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