This Release Notes document describes known issues that you should read about before you install or troubleshoot SQL Server 2008 SP2 (download it here). This document also provides search tips to help you find more known issues in Knowledge Base (KB) articles on the Microsoft Help and Support Web site. This Release Notes document and the KB articles supplement SQL Server 2008 Books Online.
This Release Notes document applies to the following products:
Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Standard
Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Standard Edition for Small Business
Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Developer
Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Enterprise
Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Express
Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Express with Advanced Services
Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Web
Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Workgroup
Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Analysis Services
Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Reporting Services
This Release Notes document is available only online, not on the installation media, and it is updated periodically.
For information about how to get started with installing SQL Server 2008, see the SQL Server 2008 Readme. The Readme is available on the installation media and from the Readme download page.
1.0 What’s New in Service Pack 2
2.0 Before You Install
3.0 Release Notes for the Original Release
4.0 How to Find More Known Issues
The following features are new in Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Service Pack 2 (SP2).
SQL Server Utility. After you apply SP2, an instance of the SQL Server 2008 Database Engine can be enrolled with a utility control point as a managed instance of SQL Server. For more information, see Overview of SQL Server Utility in SQL Server 2008 R2 Books Online.
Data-tier Application (DAC) Support. After you apply SP2, instances of the SQL Server 2008 Database Engine support all DAC operations. You can deploy, upgrade, register, extract, and delete DACs. SP2 does not upgrade the SQL Server 2008 client tools to support DACs. You must use the SQL Server 2008 R2 client tools, such as SQL Server Management Studio, to perform DAC operations. A data-tier application is an entity that contains all of the database objects and instance objects used by an application. A DAC provides a single unit for authoring, deploying, and managing the data-tier objects. For more information, see Designing and Implementing Data-tier Applications in SQL Server 2008 R2 Books Online.
Reporting Services in SharePoint Integrated Mode. SP2 provides updates for Reporting Services SharePoint integration. SQL Server 2008 SP2 report servers can integrate with SharePoint 2010 products. SQL Server 2008 SP2 also provides a new add-in for SharePoint 2007 products. The new add-in supports the integration of SharePoint 2007 products with SQL Server 2008 R2 report servers. For more information see the “What’s New in SharePoint Integration and SQL Server 2008 Service Pack 2 (SP2)” section in What's New (Reporting Services) in SQL Server 2008 R2 Books Online.
15K Partitioning Improvement. SP2 introduces support for a maximum of 15,000 partitions in tables and indexes in the Enterprise, Developer, and Evaluation Editions of Microsoft SQL Server 2008 SP2. For details on how this support can be enabled and disabled, along with recommended operation parameters, see the white paper Support for 15000 Partitions (it opens in a Word document).
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For a list of the bugs that are fixed in SQL Server 2008 Service Pack 2, see KB article 2285068.
The recommended disk space requirements to download, extract, and install SP2 are approximately 2.5 times the size of the package. The sizes of the SP2 packages are listed below:
SQL Server Express Packages (download):
SQLEXPR32_x86 (can be installed on both 32-bit and 64-bit operating systems): 110 MB
SQLEXPR_x86 (can be installed on 32-bit operating systems): 96 MB
SQLEXPR_x64: 123 MB
All Other Editions of SQL Server:
X86: 300 MB
X64: 367 MB
IA64: 359 MB
You might see SQL Server 2008 R2 features included in the list of features to be updated by the SQL Server 2008 service pack on the Select Feature or Ready to Update page. SQL Server 2008 R2 components are not affected by the SQL Server 2008 service pack update. No action is required.
You might see SQL Server 2008 R2 components in the list of features on the Select Feature or Ready to Uninstall page when removing a SQL Server 2008 service pack update. SQL Server 2008 R2 features are not uninstalled during this process. No action is required.
If you apply a SQL Server cumulative update to an instance of SQL Server where the features are not all at the same version level, the update will fail. To avoid this failure, you must ensure that all the features in an instance of SQL Server are at the same version of SQL Server.
Before you install SQL Server 2008, read the following required actions and KB articles.
If you have installed Visual Studio 2008 or have installed prerelease versions of SQL Server 2008, you might have to perform prerequisite actions before you install SQL Server 2008. To determine which actions that you might have to perform, use the following table.
Visual Studio 2008 installation status
SQL Server 2008 installation status
Required action before you install SQL Server 2008
Is not installed.
Prerelease version was never installed.
No action is required.
Prerelease version is currently or was previously installed.
Follow these steps:
Uninstall the prerelease version of SQL Server 2008.
Additionally, you might have to uninstall Visual Studio 2008 features that were added by a prerelease installation of SQL Server 2008. In Windows, use Add or Remove Programs and uninstall the following features if they are installed: Visual Studio 2008 Shell (integrated mode) and Visual Studio Tools for Applications 2.0.
Is installed, and the release version of Visual Studio 2008 Service Pack 1 (SP1) is not installed.
Perform one of the following options:
Install Visual Studio 2008 SP1 before you install SQL Server 2008.
Uninstall Visual Studio 2008, and then install SQL Server 2008. After SQL Server 2008 is installed, you can install Visual Studio 2008 and then install Visual Studio 2008 SP1.
Do not install the following components of SQL Server 2008 that require Visual Studio 2008: Management Tools (both Basic or Complete), Integration Services, and Business Intelligence Development Studio features. If you want to later install any of these features, you must first install Visual Studio 2008 SP1.
Is installed, and the release version of Visual Studio 2008 SP1 is not installed.
Do not install the following components of SQL Server 2008 that require Visual Studio 2008: Management Tools (both Basic or Complete), Integration Services, and Business Intelligence Development Studio features. If you want to later install any of these features, you must first install Visual Studio SP1.
Visual Studio 2008 SP1 release version is installed.
Prerelease version is currently installed.
If you install Visual Studio 2008 after you have installed SQL Server 2008, you must install Visual Studio 2008 SP1 to have a supported configuration. Visual Studio 2008 SP1 is not required if you did not install the following features that require Visual Studio 2008: Management Tools (both Basic or Complete), Integration Services, and Business Intelligence Development Studio.
For more information about how to install SQL Server 2008 with Visual Studio 2008, see the blog entry SQL Server 2008, Visual Studio 2008 SP1, and .NET Framework 3.5 SP1 Explained on MSDN and KB article 956139. For more information about Visual Studio 2008 SP1, see this Visual Studio Web site.
Connecting to SQL Server 2008 from Visual Studio 2005 requires downloading and installing Visual Studio 2005 Support for SQL Server 2008.
The following Knowledge Base (KB) articles highlight known issues that are important to read before you install SQL Server 2008. To find more KB articles about installation, use this Before You Install query.
KB ID
Summary
956139
Visual Studio 2008 SP1 may be required for SQL Server 2008 installations.
956427
You cannot add a cluster node when you install SQL Server 2008 Analysis Services and you do not install the SQL Server 2008 Database Engine.
956005
The status indicator for a SQL Server 2008 mirror database differs from SQL Server 2005.
955396
How to troubleshoot SQL Server 2008 Setup issues.
955399
If upgrade to SQL Server 2008 fails, uninstall the upgrade before retrying the upgrade.
955973
You might receive this error message when you try to upgrade to SQL Server 2008 on a computer that is running Windows Server: "Access to the path '<Path>\perf-MSSQL$SQL2008sqlctr.dll' is denied."
955389
How SQL Server 2008 updates what feature usage data to collect.
If you click the Help button in the SQL Server Error and Usage Reporting dialog box, it does not respond. To view the content, see Error and Usage Report Settings on MSDN.
We recommend that you view more known issues by searching for "SQL Server 2008" on the Microsoft Support Web site. To find KB articles on specific topics, click any of the following suggested searches, or create your own custom search strings.
Before You Install, Upgrade, and Configure SQL Server 2008
Planning and Prerequisites
Install
Configure
Uninstall
Repair
Analysis Services
Connectivity
Database Engine
Failover Cluster
Full-text Search
Integration Services
Logo Certification
Replication
Reporting Services
Tools
You can also join the SQL Server Community to share your experiences and learn from other people who are using SQL Server 2008. For more information, see the SQL Server Community Web site.
Books Online is the primary documentation for SQL Server 2008. You can view SQL Server 2008 Books Online on MSDN, or download a stand-alone version from the SQL Server 2008 Books Online download page.
Ed Price - MSFT edited Revision 21. Comment: Moved the TOC down. White space tweaks.
Carsten Siemens edited Revision 20. Comment: Fixed misspelling and added tag: has TOC
Fernando Lugão Veltem edited Revision 18. Comment: added toc
Monica Rush edited Revision 13. Comment: Test to make sure I'm getting notifications
Ed Price MSFT edited Revision 9. Comment: Added a link back to the original Download Center page, per customer's request. This is an English request only.
Ed Price MSFT edited Revision 5. Comment: Minor English grammar update.
Ed Price MSFT edited Revision 4. Comment: Removed a space before the bulleted list of supported products at the top.
Ed Price MSFT edited Revision 3. Comment: REVIEWED, UPDATED, and ACCEPTED changes made (which are from official Microsoft documentation).
Razvan Socol edited Revision 2. Comment: Text copied from www.microsoft.com/.../details.aspx
Ed Price MSFT edited Revision 1. Comment: Updated the "click here" link to point to the original version of this page.
Mary Browning edited Original. Comment: added disclaimer
Thank You for Properly Formatting The Release Notes and Links here and at the Download Center.
I am using IE9 and most of the HTML release notes fail to open correctly using IE9. The typical result
is a page of text with htl code and it never renders in the browser. The only work around is to save the page and open it again locally. So again thank you for proper note and read-mes for SQL Server.
Thank You,
Martin Rasch a.k.a HCamper :)
It would be good to have the service pack release date (public availability) in these release notes.
pierric1a,
Out of curiousity, why? We could do that, but obviously you know the publishing date of the article and you also know that the Service Pack is already released. Thanks!
I got to this article via a link from the SP1 download page. That is quite confusing, as these claim to be the SP2 release notes. I also can't find SP2 in the dowload center. So I can certainly understand pierric1a's confusion, as I am similarly confused.
To add to the fun the SP1 download appears corrupted and truncates after 55mb. Have tried it from 4 browsers and 2 networks.
What a waste of a day.
Cellartracker,
Unfortunately, this is a late answer (we hope to add a comment notification system to this site), but I updated these Release Notes to include a link at the top that goes back to the Download Center page for SQL Server 2008 SP2. We recommend downloading SP2 over SP1. We will also be sure to include a link from the Release Notes to the download page in future Release Notes. If you run into similar problems in the future, I recommend searching for it with a Web search (I'm not sure how the search index for the page was a few weeks back, but now it comes up in the top result of Web searches).
Here is the SQL Server SP2 Download Center page:
www.microsoft.com/.../details.aspx
Thank you for your feedback! We're glad to have a site like this where we can receive comment-based feedback.
Ed Price
Microsoft SQL Server Technical Writer
Thanks Ed. I did get SP2 down and installed in the end. I had to find it via Google and couldn't actually find it via the search on this site at the time