SQL Server 2005 Express is NOT supported for use with SoftGrid/App-V Virtual Application Servers in a production environment

This is the first in what I hope will be a fairly long series of posts covering some of the support issues we've seen during the App-V 4.5 beta.  Chances are these won't make it as official KBs but at least now they'll be on the web and searchable and may prevent you a headache or two down the road.  Enjoy!

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I've already touched on this before so this isn't news for you veterans out there but since it's a question that comes up again and again I thought I'd mention it once more now that so many people are firing up new App-V 4.5 installations. 

Because of the limitations of SQL Server 2005 Express it is not supported as a SQL server option for SoftGrid or App-V Application Virtual Servers.

SQL Express doesn’t support the SQL Server Agent which means:

1.    The SoftGrid/App-V database clean-up and resizing jobs will not run causing the database to grow uncontrollably overtime to the maximum of 4Gb at which point the SoftGrid Service could fail and cause a server outage.

2.    The SoftGrid Management Console options to control database size and retention period for the metering data options will not work.

If you want a supported environment then you need to use either Microsoft SQL Server 2000 or Microsoft SQL Server 2005 for production Virtual Application Servers.

J.C. Hornbeck | Manageability Knowledge Engineer