Downloading SQL Express 2012 from Microsoft.com

13 insightful thoughts

1. Someone needs to “simplify” it. 😀

2. When in doubt, pick the biggest one with x64 or x86 depending on platform need. It’s most likely to just give you everything, lol.

3. Microsoft stuff doesn’t make sense. Seriously.

   >”This program is not responding”
   >Click “End task”
   >One would think that clicking end task would end the task…
   >nope
   >Program starts “checking for a solution to the problem” instead of ending task
   Every day… that and Flash crashing.

   1. That is a feature so that the crash dump can be generated and sent. If you want to end the program without creating a dump, use End Process.

      1. great if you are programmer and know what’s going on. Not so good if you are Joe Average.

   2. You can also click “Cancel” when its “Checking for a solution” if you don’t have time to wait for it to do it’s thing. This will essentially kill the process (same as end process from task manager)

      1. yea, see, I’m Joe average. Not so good is an understatement… thing is many times I simply can’t End Process because the computer is frozen and the task manager won’t even load. If it did it’d probably just slow things down even more, so I just click end task instead and hope it works.

4. This pretty much sums up a lot of my Microsoft (and also non-Microsoft) experiences.

   You know all those pictures with billboard screens showing antivirus popups or BSODs? How somebody always replies “they should have used Windows embedded! They don’t need the full desktop version for this!” ?

   Well, when “Joe Smith, IT expert” is charged with setting up a new billboard system, the first thing he does is find out about Windows Embedded products. Now he has to choose between:

   -Windows Embedded 8
   -Windows Embedded Compact, formerly Windows Embedded CE
   -Windows Embedded Standard, formerly Windows XPe
   -Windows Embedded POSReady, formerly WEPOS
   -Windows Embedded Enterprise
   -Windows Embedded Server (WHY?)
   -Windows Embedded Thin Client
   …

   Out of morbid curiosity he clicks in the “Server” and “Enterprise” ones. Turns out they are actually just Windows Server and Windows renamed (“Windows Embedded Server is binary identical to Windows Server”, “These products are fully functional versions of Microsoft’s desktop operating system”). He thinks “screw this shit, those guys are crazy” and just installs a copy of good old Windows 7 Home Premium. With a free antivirus of course, just in case.

5. The product page gives you direct links with explanations for each download: http://www.microsoft.com/sqlserver/en/us/editions/2012-editions/express.aspx (click the download button).

6. Now try downloading 2008. There’re at least 8 versions of that, combinations of tools, sp1, visual studio integration, x86/64, etc. And guess which one shows up at the top of search results? It’s the most outdated one of course.

7. Try downloading FxCop, for kicks: http://channel9.msdn.com/forums/Coffeehouse/561743-How-I-downloaded-and-installed-FxCop/

8. Very interesting. Thanks for sharing.

9. Pingback: The 12 step process to download Microsoft SQL Server Express 2014 | istartedsomething

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