okay. I got it.
I had a couple of issues. It seems I had to install IIS which I did
following instructions found here.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms143748.aspx

Then it seems the management studio is on disk 2 but it skips over it if you
have any previous install of SQL or SQL express on there, and even though I
thought I had removed all previous components there must have been something
hanging around.

I used this bit of advise I found on a blog:

"I too had prolems not being able to install until I also installed "windows
installer Cleanup Utility". Google it, install from Microsoft.

Like me you may find some extra installs of "SQL 2005 Express tools"
installed on your machine that you are not seeing in the "Add Remove
Programs". This utility will help you delete them so you can install then
again.
from Brent Welke.

and that worked for me.

Apparently some people were able to get the same result by doing some
simpler things.
Below is a really comprehensive blog, but I spent days trying to work
through it all before I had success.

http://blogs.neudesic.com/blogs/pete...10/12/416.aspx







"Rick Byham, (MSFT)" wrote: