Hi all,

I am getting a tough lesson in remote Web Server administration. We had
asked the hosting company to install SQL Server 2005 Standard on our
dedicated Windows 2003 ENT Web server when they built it from scratch.
Unfortunately communications between Sales and Tech failed, such that they
installed MSDE (2000) as the default instance of SQL Server. When they
realized their mistake they installed SQL Server 2005 STD as a named
instance (MSSQLSERVER2).

I do not have access to the install media and therefore cannot uninstall and
reinstall everything remotely via Remote Desktop. In fact, what is more
disturbing is that I can't even find MSDE in the Add/Remove programs list.
SQL Server Management Studio clearly shows the default instance as MSDE.

The Hosting company is dragging their heels and wants to charge more setup
fees. Is there any way that I can make SQL Server 2005 the default instance
without uninstalling all instances of SQL Server and then re-installing? I
can't seem to find documentation about that.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions....

I think that the only way to change what is the default instance is to
remove them and re-install.

--
Arnie Rowland, Ph.D.
Westwood Consulting, Inc

Most good judgment comes from experience.
Most experience comes from bad judgment.
- Anonymous

You can't someone get up a hill without getting a little closer to the
top yourself.
- H. Norman Schwarzkopf


"John Kotuby" <johnk@powerlist.com> wrote in message
news:uxMxjV3AHHA.992@TK2MSFTNGP03.phx.gbl...
> Hi all,
>
> I am getting a tough lesson in remote Web Server administration. We had
> asked the hosting company to install SQL Server 2005 Standard on our
> dedicated Windows 2003 ENT Web server when they built it from scratch.
> Unfortunately communications between Sales and Tech failed, such that they
> installed MSDE (2000) as the default instance of SQL Server. When they
> realized their mistake they installed SQL Server 2005 STD as a named
> instance (MSSQLSERVER2).
>
> I do not have access to the install media and therefore cannot uninstall
> and reinstall everything remotely via Remote Desktop. In fact, what is
> more disturbing is that I can't even find MSDE in the Add/Remove programs
> list. SQL Server Management Studio clearly shows the default instance as
> MSDE.
>
> The Hosting company is dragging their heels and wants to charge more setup
> fees. Is there any way that I can make SQL Server 2005 the default
> instance without uninstalling all instances of SQL Server and then
> re-installing? I can't seem to find documentation about that.
>
> Thanks in advance for any suggestions....
>

The only way to rename an instance is to uninstall and reinstall the
instance. You can only have one default instance of SQL (any version) on a
system. So, the short answer is no. On the other hand, there is no
functional difference between the default instance and a named instance.
The only differences is that the default instance gets port 1433, unless you
force a change, and it has a single-part name. On multi-instance systems,
partucularly clusters, I only use named instances so all the servers look
the same on the net. If you are using JDBC or a simlar connecter that needs
to attach to a specific port, you can use the SQL Configuration Manager
tool to assign a permanent port to the named instance.

--
Geoff N. Hiten
Senior Database Administrator
Microsoft SQL Server MVP




"John Kotuby" <johnk@powerlist.com> wrote in message
news:uxMxjV3AHHA.992@TK2MSFTNGP03.phx.gbl...
> Hi all,
>
> I am getting a tough lesson in remote Web Server administration. We had
> asked the hosting company to install SQL Server 2005 Standard on our
> dedicated Windows 2003 ENT Web server when they built it from scratch.
> Unfortunately communications between Sales and Tech failed, such that they
> installed MSDE (2000) as the default instance of SQL Server. When they
> realized their mistake they installed SQL Server 2005 STD as a named
> instance (MSSQLSERVER2).
>
> I do not have access to the install media and therefore cannot uninstall
> and reinstall everything remotely via Remote Desktop. In fact, what is
> more disturbing is that I can't even find MSDE in the Add/Remove programs
> list. SQL Server Management Studio clearly shows the default instance as
> MSDE.
>
> The Hosting company is dragging their heels and wants to charge more setup
> fees. Is there any way that I can make SQL Server 2005 the default
> instance without uninstalling all instances of SQL Server and then
> re-installing? I can't seem to find documentation about that.
>
> Thanks in advance for any suggestions....
>