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
17 Comments
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?
Mike, you’ll need to create the database instance first using SQL Mangement studio or the command line.
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
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.
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
hey Jason dont forget to put servername\instancename for the name of the database in the setup of BES…
Fred
Mike you need to remove the quote in the instance name…
Fred
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…
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.
I ran into the same issue – but found on blackberry.com that you want to specify a couple things:
After the reboot, when setup continues and asks for Server and Database, choose REMOTE server and in the servername, use:
servername\dbinstance
When specifying database, just use dbinstance
Everything else generated the Database server not found error.
Hope that helps someone out there!
–Colin–
Colin,
Your comment advising to specify the database as being remote worked for me!
Many Thanks
After I entered the command in step 4; I can find the instance listed as “SQL Server BESMGMT” not “MSSQL$BESMGMT”, the stated service IS running but still get the “Database server not found verify the provided information” error. What can I do?
Larry, if you follow the stream of comments, you should solve this issue.
Thank you so much for this.
After following your instructions the installation still failed with LoadPerf errors 3002 and 3009 appearing in the Event Log. That lead me to http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;315083 and after running the command lodctr /r:PerfStringBackup.ini I was able to run setup INSTANCENAME=BESMgmt SAPWD=”AStrongSAPwd” /L*v C:\MSDELog.log without it rolling back.
Thanks again. I don’t think I could have fixed this without this page.
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I have the same problem as reported by SteveEB. I have run the command lodctr /r:PerfoStringBackup.ini but the setup command still fails. What am I missing? Please help. Thanks
Samsara,
As I recall it was the event log error codes that led me to the answer in my case. Clear out the logs and then run setup again and see what errors are generated.
Hope you find the answer.