The place I found Sohail's technique invaluable was when I needed to install SQL Server 2005 Standard on Windows Server 2012. Everything ran fine the second time around. Instead, I just canceled the install rebooted the machine and ran the install again. There was no point in following the rest of Sohail's method since I already was using a SP4 version of SQLServr.exe and SQLOS.dll. I then ran into the same error Sohail had where the SQL Server service failed to start. I just told it to Ignore and it continued. The first error I received was when Setup tried to start the SQL VSS Writer. I was using the installer that already had SP4 applied so maybe that explains the difference. I had a different experience loading SQL Server 2005 Express on Windows 8. In any case you can create a VM and install SQL Server 2005 with SP3/Sp4 to copy the files for Windows 8 From an installation of SQL Server 2005 SP3 or SP4 copy SQLSERVR.EXE and SQLOS.DLL files and put them in your SQL install folder.įor STEP 5 above: Although I didn't try looking into SP4 / SP3 setup for SQLSERVR.EXE and SQLOS.DLL but if you don't have an existing installation of SQL Server 2005 SP3/SP4 then maybe try looking into the SP3/SP4 EXE (Compressed file). For more information, see the SQL Server Books Online topics, "How to: View SQL Server 2005 Setup Log Files" and "Starting SQL Server Manually." Extract sqlncli.msi / sqlncli_圆4.msi from SP3 or SP4.Perform the following steps (Only 64bit version of SQL Server 2005 Developer Edition tested on Windows 8 Pro 64bit) But I also had to perform additional steps.