How to control SQL Server 2005 Express installed as a "prerequisite"

Suppose I check "SQL Server 2005 Express Edition" as one of the prerequisites for a custom app in a Windows Setup project.

From reading whatever docs I could get my hands on, it's still not clear to me how to control the installation of SQL Server Express with respect to things like instance name, service account, etc, etc.

In other words, this is stuff that's normally the domain of template.ini. However, there's no clear indication of where I should put template.ini so that the install of "prerequisite" SQL Server Express will see it and configure accordingly...

Thanks in advance to anyone who can help solve this...

Josh

Josh, template.ini is not used for configuration settings (as the .iss files were in SQL 2000). This file merely is used as documentation for creating silent installs by describing which flags are used in various situations.

As for another application installing SQL 2005 Express, I would assume that the application is controlling the install (instance name, accounts, etc) so that it can connect after install. If they are not exposing these install features during their install, they probably are using some default values for all installs.

Thanks,
Samuel Lester (MSFT)

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Samuel:

Yep, it looks like the parameters (at least, all the ones I tried) are recognized when supplied on the command line.

One parameter I haven't been able to find, though, is one that tells SQL Server Express Edition to use port 1433 instead of dynamic ports. I know about DISABLENETWORKPROTOCOLS (and it, too, works as expected), but it only activates TCP -- it doesn't affect the port-assignment scheme.

Thanks,
Josh