SQL Server 2005 Express On Vista

I am having problems installing SQL Server 2005 Express on a Vista Home Edition laptop with SP1, this program is needed for another program to install so without it I'm pretty stuffed! Every time I start the installation of SQL it gets to the point where the services are about to start and then a message pops up (which I should have copied) saying that native client blarrdy blah didn't load or something along those lines... then it gives me the option to retry or cancel, retry never works and cancel rolls back the installation thus FAIL.

Is there a version of SQL 2005 that is Vista compatible? I heard that SP2 fixes issues with Vista machines but how can I install SP2 without SQL Server in the first place! :scratch: I'm not sure whether this other program can run with a newer version of SQL server, it's just that it wants to update to SQL Server 2005 SP2 as a pre-install requisite...

Any help is much appreciated!

Unsure why you think you need SQL Server to install SP2? :scratch:

No, they say you need SQL Server SP2 to work with Vista. Anyway, I think I cracked it by downloading SQL Server 2005 with SP1, well, it worked on my laptop with the same version of Windows that I am trying to install it on. God this is boring talk... topic closed.

***Update*** Topic re-opened, it's not boring ;)

Damn this $hit! It's still not working on the laptop that I am trying to install it on! It gets so far into the installation and then a message pops up specifically saying cannot load dll xpstar90.dll??? This file exists in the Binn folder of the SQL server installation path but for some reason will not load. Has anyone ever come across this before? I installed the same version of SQL server on my laptop the other day and it worked fine, I even have the same windows version and service pack as the Dell machine I am trying to install it on. I have removed a lot of the Dell crappy programs that come along with a standard build of the Inspirons but I don't really want to remove anymore because they are quite useful! Any ideas?

It's the same error message as this poor fella is getting http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/For...e-b291dae22fad

No replies though :cry: