FIX: Rule “Previous releases of Microsoft Visual Studio 2008” failed.

18/05/2020 Far easier solution was given by Paul in the comments section of the old blog. As the move to Hugo clobbered the comments, this article brings the workable solution from Paul and updated for 2020.

As you may be aware, Microsoft RTM’d SQL Server 2008 a few days ago, unfortunately if you have the RTM version of Visual Studio 2008 (any edition) installed you’ll find that installing SQL Server 2008 you’ll get a nasty little surprise: asg

Installation error
Rule “Previous releases of Microsoft Visual Studio 2008” failed. A previous release of Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 is installed on this computer. Upgrade Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 to the SP1 before installing SQL Server 2008.

This is all explained in the KB956139 – Visual Studio 2008 SP1 may be required for SQL Server 2008 installations, there is however a fix or a workaround to installing SQL Server without the need for SP1 if you aren’t able to obtain it.

There are two ways to resolve this issue, first is to customise the installer so that these components are not installed:

• Management Tools
• Integration Services
• Business Intelligence Development Studio

If that still presents issues, you can do what a helpful commenter suggested and run the setup without running the rules.

$ Setup.exe /ACTION=install /SkipRules=VSShellInstalledRule RebootRequiredCheck

You can download it on MSDN Subscriber Downloads or the TechNet Subscriber Downloads section. Dont forget to checkout What’s New in SQL Server 2008.