Installing AdventureWorks Sample Databases

AdventureWorks  is one of the common sample databases used in Microsoft Database related programming or, in Visual Studio applications. What started off as a single database has grown into a big family and together with this, the installation procedure has undergone a lot of changes. The days of attaching and detaching sample database files are gone. The WinZip installer kicks off the installation.

Recently I wanted to work with PHP training kit which required a SQL Server 2008 Express with a AdventureWorks database. The download link on the Configuration Wizard-PHP on Windows Training kit took me to a dead end (Trust me this happens a lot with Microsoft documentation). Finally, I thought just that any AdventureWorks would do and downloaded the AdventureWorks2008R2_RTM.exe (82.3 MB ) from CodePlex site and installed it on the brand new SQL Express 2008 (SQLEXPRADV_x86.enu.exe). Although it did not provide the right (Which, I don't know what? As yet) AdventureWorks, I could see how the installation procedure has changed.

The installation took 35 minutes. It took 100% of the CPU and 76% of physical memory during installation and installed a bunch of AdventureWorks databases for all kinds of end users. Here are some screen shots of the installation.

Look at all the AdventureWorks databases in this image.