This article is part of a backup. It was originally posted on Sunday, April 13. 2008.

At the very bottom of the SQL Server 2005 Express download page, Microsoft offers 64-bit versions of their installers. Unfortunately, this is not everything you need to run SQL Server Express on 64-bit versions of Windows Vista. As it turns out, the installer currently provided on the download page is bundled with the 32-bit version of the SQL Server Native Client, which causes the subsequent SQL Server installation to fail with the following symptoms:

• The installer prompts for sqlncli_x64.msi

Restarting the whole installation or uninstalling the Native Client doesn’t help.

Solution

Prior to running the installer for SQL Server 2005 Express 64-bit, you have to manually install the 64-bit version of the Native Client. The following steps proved successful:

1. Install the 32-bit version of the SQL Native Client if it is not already installed.
2. Download and install the 64-bit Native Client.
3. Download and install SQL Server 2005 Express Edition 64-bit
4. Download and install SQL Server Management Studio Express Edition 64-bit

You should now have a working installation of SQL Server 2005 Express Edition on Windows Vista 64-bit.

References

The problem was first discussed and solved on the MSDN Forums.