Hello:

I installed SQL Express on my system. I uninstalled and
reinstalled it a few times. Eventually, this hosed my system to some
extent, and SQL Express would not install. I just had Windows XP Home
reinstalled. I have reinstalled the software that I use.

Yesterday, I tried to install SQL Express for the first time on
this new installation. It failed with
Wait on the Database Engine recovery handle failed.
This is worse than before. At least I was able to install it a few
times.

There are various items on the Web about this error with many
different answers.

I had installed it under Revo Uninstaller Pro. I did a forced
uninstall and tried again. The installation failed near the beginning
with
Performance counter registry hive consistency failed.
There is a reference to
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/300956
To repair this, step 1 is to expand two files in c:\i386. that
directory does not exist on my system. Fortunately, I had backed up
the entire partition, so I restored it.

I am about to try installing SQL Express again today. What
should I be considering first? (I am rather badly bitten / gunshy at
this point.)

Some of the articles stated that the first error could happen
because of permissions. There is not much detail. What account
should I specify when asked for it? There is a form which has four
spots, three empty and the fourth filled in with NT AUTHORITY\LOCAL
SERVICES. I simply used that for the other three. For SQL Express
administrators, I made my account the administrator. My account is
system administrator. I have tried making my system miexed
authentication so that I could run SQL Express under more than one
account (to check security features).

Sincerely,

Gene Wirchenko