It never hurts with Microsoft products to have fresh installs. Love their products, but sometimes they just don't play well together, or at least if not installed in some certain order.

Ok I removed VS 2005 and VS 2008 and all remnants of SQL server. I then rebooted and ran the install for VS 2008, making sure SQL Server 2005 Express was selected. Ran the install and the ending message was your program installed successfully...no errors. So just to be sure, I rebooted and then checked Services and installed programs and the only SQL installed is SQL VSS Writer????

So now, I want to install an express version of sql - so I'm going to download and attempt to install 2005. Will post back the results. This is just nuts!!! LOL

I got two warnings upon the initial install of express 2005: Edition Change Check (Warning)
Messages
Edition Change Check

To change an existing instance of Microsoft SQL Server 2005 to a different edition of SQL Server 2005, you must run SQL Server 2005 Setup from the command prompt and include the SKUUPGRADE=1 parameter.

and the other one was the asp.net error. I've been through IIS and configured all the non-default options required.

We'll see if this install goes through.

Still no go. I get the same error as I was before:

TITLE: Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Setup
------------------------------

SQL Server Setup Failed to compile the Managed Object Format (MOF) file C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SQL Server\90\Shared\sqlmgmproviderxpsp2up.mof. To proceed, see "Troubleshooting an Installation of SQL Server 2005" or "How to: View SQL Server 2005 Setup Log Files" in SQL Server 2005 Setup Help documentation.

Now what?

Looks like a corrupt wmi

How to fix it:
http://slashstar.com/blogs/tim/archi...ct-format.aspx


Also from microsoft's site.
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/d...displaylang=en

C:\>winmgmt /verifyrepository
WMI repository is consistent

This is the response I get when I query the repository. I tried this before but tried it again this morning just in case it got jacked up in my uninstalling and reinstalling apps.

Hmmm.

Here's another microsoft link with that exact problem if you haven't tried it already.

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=926623

Ok - I had tried that last one, but misread it. So I just tried it again and got the same blasted error...ARGH. It should NOT be this difficult - LOL.

Any more suggestions?

Lol seems to be pretty hard.

Here's another
http://blogs.msdn.com/echarran/archi...03/509061.aspx

After doing that make sure your wmi repository is still good.

Okay - maybe this is part of the problem??? Here's the response I get from running the command on the blog you just posted:

Microsoft (R) MOF Compiler Version 6.0.6000.16386
Copyright (c) Microsoft Corp. 1997-2006. All rights reserved.
File 'C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\90\Shared\sqlmgmproviderxpsp2up.mof' not found!

This is after I ran the regular 2005 Exp, got past the prerequisites installing, canceling and running the 2005 Exp SP2 that failed, which then uninstalls when I click on cancel.

Where does that file come from?