Kurt Shintaku's Blog

If you have the Developer Edition of SQL Server 2005 and have Visual Studio 2008 installed, and you attempt to upgrade to SQL Server 2008, you will find that the install WILL NOT WORK. 

The installation will fail stating that you much have Visual Studio 2008 Service Pack 1 which is not released yet.  (The SP1 Beta only – which the README below states you should NOT install)

Visual Studio Service Pack 1 will be released the week of August 11, 2008.

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Taken from:  http://download.microsoft.com/download/4/9/e/49eeb41a-a769-4520-80d6-671b8ae2bd06/SQLServer2008ReleaseNotes.htm

Before You Install

Please read the KB articles listed below before you install SQL Server 2008. More known issues can be found online; we recommend you read about the following issues first.

KB Article 956139 requires Visual Studio 2008 SP1, which is not available until the week of August 11, 2008. You should not install the Visual Studio 2008 SP1 Beta to meet the Visual Studio 2008 SP1 requirement for installingSQL Server 2008. Visual Studio 2008 SP1 Beta does not provide the necessary functionality for installing SQL Server 2008. The following describes options for installing SQL Server 2008 before Visual Studio 2008 SP1 is available.

• If Visual Studio 2008 is not currently installed on your computer, you can install SQL Server 2008 and no further action for installing Visual Studio is required.
• If Visual Studio 2008 is currently installed on your computer, you cannot install SQL Server 2008 successfully unless you perform one of the following actions:
• Wait until Visual Studio 2008 SP1 is available and then install it before installing SQL Server 2008.
• Uninstall Visual Studio 2008 and then install SQL Server 2008. After Visual Studio 2008 SP1 is available, you can install Visual Studio 2008 and then install Visual Studio 2008 SP1.
• Only install components of SQL Server 2008 that do not require Visual Studio 2008. For example, do not select the Management Tools (both Basic and Complete), Integration Services, or Business Intelligence Development Studio features.

For more information about Visual Studio 2008 SP1, see this Visual Studio web site.