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Installation

We are now ready to get started. After launching SQLEXPR32.EXE you will have to agree to the licensing terms and then click Install to begin the process.

Next, your system will be scanned to make sure it meets all the requirements for SQL 2005 Express. Once they are all met, you can continue by clicking Next.

Continue until you get to the “Registration Information” page. Make sure to uncheck the “Hide advanced configuration options” box. We will want to modify a few things for EventSentry to work best.

The "Feature Selection" section comes up next. Here you can leave everything as default. You have the option of choosing a different installation location if desired. Remember that an EventSentry database can grow quite large (depending on your configuration of course), so make sure you choose a drive that has enough free space.

Next is the "Instance Name" dialog. By default, SQL Express will want to make a named instance. If you already have other database servers on here, this can be a good idea.

Since this is the only database on this server, I'm going to keep it simple and use the Default Instance. If you do use a named instance, please make a note of what it is. You may want to change it from "SQLExpress" to "EventSentry".

This next part is very important. EventSentry requires "Mixed Mode" authentication, so that SQL user accounts can be used to log into SQL Server in addition to Windows users accounts. There are two accounts that EventSentry uses that have very limited permissions: eventsentry_svc and eventsentry_web. They are SQL-only accounts only and have no Windows rights.

In "Mixed Mode", you will need to set a password for the "sa" user account. This is the master user of the database (like an Administrator in Windows or root in Unix). This password will be important later on when setting up EventSentry.

Next, you end up with the "Collation Settings" dialog box. You can leave the defaults and click on Next.

In the dialog below, there are two check boxes. We have no real reason to let unprivileged users run instances so I uncheck the first option. You can leave it on if you have a reason for this.

I leave the second option unchecked since we recommend using the "sa" account when configuring EventSentry.

You then get the "Error and Usage Report Settings". Use whatever you like here, it makes no difference in the functionality of the database.

Now there should be an "Install" button which will do the actual installation. Once this is done - and assuming that the installation went through OK - you will have a fully functional database server.

We aren't finished yet though, there are still a few things we need to configure in SQL Server before we can use it with EventSentry.