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Installing the NAV 2009 demo database to a SQL Server named instance

One of the questions that has been raised frequently is how to install the Dynamics NAV demo database to a named instance of Microsoft SQL Server using the new installation program that was released with Dynamics NAV 2009. The short answer to this question is that this is not supported. However, there is a work around that in fact will allow you to do this.Before going into how this can be accomplished there are a few things I need to highlight.

  • You cannot repeat this work around several times on a computer in order to install several demo databases. The work around involves running Windows Installer files (msi) and running such a file a second time will only repair or uninstall the product rather than installing a new instance of the product. You can create a demo database manually using some of the files on the installation media, but this is not within the scope of this blog entry.
  • You must not run the Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2009 installation program (setup.exe) on the computer after you have installed the demo database using this work around since this will uninstalled the demo database. This happens because the Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2009 installation program keeps an inventory of the Dynamics NAV products that have been installed to the computer and will uninstall those which are not in the inventory.

Now with this in place let’s proceed with the work around.

The task at hand is to install the Dynamics NAV 2009 demo database to a named instance of Microsoft SQL Server 2005. The name of the instance is “CRONUSDEMO” and has already been installed to the computer “CRONUSSERVER” with the service account “NETWORK SERVICE”. The Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2009 installation media is located in the DVD drive of your computer (D:\), but it will also work if you install from a local folder or a network drive. You must have administrative privileges on the computer.

  1. Open a Command Prompt on the computer. You must open the command prompt as Administrator if the OS is Vista and you are running with User Account Control (UAC) turned on.
  2. Run the following command:
    msiexec -I "D:\SQLDatabase\Microsoft_Dynamics_NAV_SQL_Database.msi" INSTANCENAME=CRONUSDEMO
  3. Run the following command:
    msiexec -I "D:\SQLDatabase\Microsoft_Dynamics_NAV_SQL_DemoDatabase.msi" INSTANCENAME=CRONUSDEMO

The demo database is now installed and you should see two entries for this in the control panel.

To use the newly installed database with the Microsoft Dynamics NAV RoleTailored client you must manually set the Microsoft Dynamics NAV Server to connect to the SQL Server named instance. To do this you must edit the configuration file of the server.

  1. Open the CustomSettings.config file using a text editor. You can find the file in the folder “\Program Files\ Microsoft Dynamics NAV\60\Service”.
  2. Locate the DatabaseServer key.
  3. Change the value attribute to CRONUSSERVER\CRONUSDEMO

You do not have to change any settings on the RoleTailored client in order to connect to the database.

navteam

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