The SQL Server 2005 Enterprise and Developer editions have identical template.ini files. SQL Server 2005 Express with Advanced Features has a template.ini with additional entries. These entries do not appear appropriate for Express and thus would be superfluous.
Notice that the Note in the Express template.ini says an upgrade to SQL Server Express requires NT authentication, so it doesn't make sense to include SQL login parameters (UPGRADEUSER and UPGRADEPWD) in a template.ini for Express.
Also notice that the SKUUPGRADE parameter is included in the Express template.ini file. This doesn't seem to belong there because the comments discuss upgrading from one edition of SQL Server 2005 to another. Express is not a SQL Server 2005 upgrade option. It seems more appropriate to be included in the template.ini files for Enterprise and Developer. Neither of those versions has this parameter, which would be an omission.
All template.ini files have several occurrences of this typographical error:
MYDOMIAN\MYSQLDOMAINGROUP
The following section shows the additional entries in the template.ini for Express:
;--------------------------------------------------------------------
; The UPGRADEUSER and UPGRADEPWD properties specify the SQL login used by setup
; to connect to upgrade SQL database engine.
; If the properties are not specified NT authentication is used.
; NOTE: To upgrade to SQL Server Express editions NT authentication has to be used.
UPGRADEUSER=
UPGRADEPWD=
;--------------------------------------------------------------------
; Use the SKUUPGRADE parameter when upgrading from one edition of SQL Server 2005 to another edition of SQL Server 2005.
; Important: If you use the SKUUPGRADE parameter, Setup will remove all hotfix and service pack updates from the SQL
; Server instance being upgraded. Once the edition upgrade is complete, you must reapply all hotfix and service pack updates.
; To perform an edition upgrade of a default instance of SQL Server 2005 (SQL Engine only) via unattended Setup, run
; the following command using either /qb or /qn:
; start /wait setup.exe ADDLOCAL=SQL_Engine INSTANCENAME=MSSQLSERVER UPGRADE=SQL_Engine SKUUPGRADE=1 /qb
SKUUPGRADE=
template.ini differences, typos, possible superfluous/omitted content
Harry Kraak
Sorry, I didn't pay close enough attention and the "advanced features" part of your post slipped by me. Express with Advanced Features shipped some months after the other versions that you're looking at, and the template got updated after the original SKUs shipped. I expect you'll see that all future releases (if there are any) will include the new version.
As for the misspelling of "domain": we're pretty paranoid about making non-essential changes, and we're only fixing things that cause real customer pain in SQL Server 2005. Actually I find misspellings pretty grating but we're going to have to live with that one until the next major release of SQL Server. Sorry...
Paul
Hema Chaudhry
I'm believe your assertion that you did not find differences, but there are differences.
1. Downloaded en_sql_2005_dev_all_dvd.iso from MSDN.
2. Extracted ..\SQL Server x86\Servers\template.ini
file size is 29,597 bytes
3. Downloaded en_sql_2005_ent_x86_dvd.iso from MSDN.
4. Extracted ..\Servers\template.ini
file size is 29,597 bytes and it matches the Developer Edition template.ini
5. Downloaded SQLEXPR_ADV.EXE from http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/express/sql/download/advanced/default.aspx and saved SQLEXPR_ADV.EXE to disk.
6. Used a command prompt and SQLEXPR_ADV.EXE /x to extract all files.
template.ini is 31,875 bytes and it differs from the other two template.ini files
As previously posted, these keywords appear in SQL Express with Advanced Features but not in the Developer Edition:
UPGRADEUSER=
UPGRADEPWD=
SKUUPGRADE=
Overall all, there are two sections of the Express with Advanced Features template.ini that do not appear in the Developer Edition. The first difference section is comprised entirely of comments. The second difference section is comprised of comments and the three keywords shown above.
Each of the three template.ini files contains four occurences of the same DOMIAN typo.
mbartulovic
We didn't create a custom version of template.ini for Express. We knew this might cause some confusion but we decided to have a single template.ini across all versions of SQL Server 2005. I just confirmed this by diffing the Express and Dev template.inis; they're identical.
We might consider splitting them for the next version of SQL Server; let us know if that's really important to you.
Paul