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Installing MSDE on SBS for Blackberry Enterprise Server

By chris dalby | May 15, 2007

I’ve got a few customers using Blackberry Enterprise Server (BES) now and they are all running this on Small Business Server 2003.

Research in Motion would probably not recommend this configuration, but actually SBS seems to cope quite well. Although I have not tested this out with more than 6 users.

Installing BES onto SBS is not entirely straight forward, mainly down to the way MSDE is installed on SBS. The BES installation cannot find the MSDE database, but it also doesn’t give you the option to automatically install another database instance.

So, in order to get the BES installation working on SBS, you should create a new instance of MSDE before ruining the installation. You can do this as follows:

1. Locate the MSDE files on the SBS 2003 CD 3 or download from Microsoft.

2. Open a command prompt (Start -> Run -> cmd -> clickOK).

3. On the Command Prompt, change to the directory where the MSDE files are located e.g. cd D:\SBS\MONITOR\MSDE

4. Enter the following command to create the new instance:

setup INSTANCENAME=”BESMgmt” SAPWD=”AStrongSAPwd” /L*v C:\MSDELog.log

5. Start the service: Start -> Run -> Services.msc -> Click OK. Scroll down to the instance you just created MSSQL$BESMGMT, select and click start service.

6. Check the log file to make sure everything installed correctly at C:\MSDELog.log

Then when you run the BES installation, simply enter BESMgmt as the database name. The installation will then run like a dream.

Make sure you follow the Quick Start Guide for the rest of the installation available here: BES Express 4.1 Getting Started Guide

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12 Responses to “Installing MSDE on SBS for Blackberry Enterprise Server”

  1. Mike Says:
    June 22nd, 2007 at 4:27 am

    I am trying to run the following command, setup INSTANCENAME=”BESMgmt” SAPWD=”AStrongSAPwd” /L*v C:\MSDELog.log

    But everytime I do I get a message stating that “The instace name specified is invalid”

    Any ideas?

  2. Chris Dalby Says:
    June 22nd, 2007 at 11:56 am

    Mike, you’ll need to create the database instance first using SQL Mangement studio or the command line.

  3. Alan Guilford Says:
    July 5th, 2007 at 4:56 pm

    Hi Chris,

    Having trouble installing MSDE on SBS. Won’t let me create a new instance saying SQL already in use but it is the SBS so don’t want to shut it down.

    Thanks,
    Alan

  4. Richard Says:
    September 25th, 2007 at 10:27 am

    Mike,

    You will need to type the command into your Command Prompt, if you have tried copy and paste from the web it doesn’t always like the quotes.

    Hope that helps.

  5. Jason Says:
    December 29th, 2007 at 4:34 pm

    Hey Chris,

    Thanks a lot for the help here. This is farther than I’ve gotten period. I have the SQL Server running (so it seems). I followed your instructions above and it all seemed to work well. Then I rebooted and the SQL icon in the taskbar lists the BESMgmt as running. But the install still says “Database Server not found. Verify the provided information”

    I’m beyond frustrated as I had spent hours trying to get this working before I came across this site. I really hope you can help.

    thanks,
    Jason

  6. Fred Says:
    January 10th, 2008 at 4:14 am

    hey Jason dont forget to put servername\instancename for the name of the database in the setup of BES…

    Fred

  7. Fred Says:
    January 10th, 2008 at 4:38 am

    Mike you need to remove the quote in the instance name…

    Fred

  8. Bill Hoggett Says:
    January 31st, 2008 at 6:17 pm

    I’m having the same problem as Jason. I’ve tried using instancename or servername\instancename as the database name with no joy. The same “Database server not found. Verify the provided information.” rears its ugly head every time.

    I’d love to find out where the problem is, because I’ve spent several hours and lots of searching trying to find a solution to no avail. The customer will have to do without his BlackBerry access to Exchange for the time being and I will have to do without my reputation… :(

  9. Don Baham Says:
    February 13th, 2008 at 3:26 am

    setup INSTANCENAME=BESMgmt SAPWD=”AStrongSAPwd” /L*v C:\MSDELog.log

    Notice, no quotes around BESMgmt. That is what works for me on SBS 2003 R2.

  10. Don Baham Says:
    February 13th, 2008 at 3:49 am

    http://www.blackberry.com/btsc/search.do?cmd=displayKC&docType=kc&externalId=KB10087&sliceId=SAL_Public&dialogID=31204712&stateId=1%200%2031202829

  11. chris dalby Says:
    February 13th, 2008 at 9:55 am

    Hi Guys
    Thanks alot for looking after this thread for me. I hope it has been usefull. If it is missing something, then let me know and I will adjust accordingly. :D

  12. Matt Says:
    February 21st, 2008 at 4:03 am

    I had this problem and followed the URL provided by Don (Item 10). I followed option 2 in the directions: download/install MSDE on SBS 2003 server. It worked great for me and got me past this problem.

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