Wednesday, March 05, 2008

Annoyance: Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 doesn't uninstall SQL Server 2005 Embedded Edition, and how to remove it

I went to SharePoint developer training a few weeks ago, which was a good experience. The class had everything setup to go in VMs to save time, and it wasn't an admin course, but when I went to install Windows SharePoint Services (WSS) 3.0, either I made a mistake or the dialog didn't ask, but somehow SQL Server 2005 Embedded Edition got installed, even though I had an install of SQL Server 2005 installed. So I wanted to take another crack at getting this right. I uninstalled WSS 3.0, and much to my surprise, SQL Embedded was still installed, and with no entry in Add/Remove Programs. I started running through the SQL 2005 Installer, but I got to the confirm dialog without being presented an instance to select, so I bailed on that. Hit Google, and found this by way of James Green's Blog. Here's the command you have to run (on 32-bit systems:
msiexec /x {CEB5780F-1A70-44A9-850F-DE6C4F6AA8FB} callerid=ocsetup.exe
. Jérémie says that was simple, yeah real simple ;-).