vSphere Server ODBC weirdness with W2K8 64-bit & SQL 2K5

For those of you that cringe at SQL Express in a VMWare installation and prefer separate SQL Servers follow me and let me save you some time if you are setting up your System DSN to SQL 2005 for vSphere Server...

First off - the out of the box ODBC driver for SQL Server on W2K8 does not play well... go here:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=50b97994-8453-4998-8226-fa42ec403d17&displaylang=en

..or Bing or Google "Microsoft SQL Server 2005 - February 2007"

Install this baby on the vSphere Server and log in (hopefully) as your bare bones AD sql service account (Local Admin of course!)

Hopefully by now you have your SQL DB provisioned on your SQL box. If not create the DB in question (I prefer vSphereServerDB) and set security to use the AD account and make sure of course it is the owner (DBO).

Now back to the ODBC connector:

You need to re-create the shortcut to the ODBC admin tool using this path:

C:\Windows\SysWOW64\odbcad32.exe

I just right clicked on the desktop and added new shortcut and dropped in the above for the target, call it what you want...done.

Next setup your "Systerm DSN" as usual except make sure you choose "SQL Native Client" instead of the "SQL Server" that exists after a bare bones W2K8 install...

This will make the install go much smoother...trust me!

For full "Systen DSN" creation instructions and setup reference pages 70-74 in the "ESX and vCenter Server Installation Guide"

Link to PDF below!

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&ct=res&cd=1&ved=0CAsQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.vmware.com%2Fpdf%2Fvsphere4%2Fr40%2Fvsp_40_esx_vc_installation_guide.pdf&rct=j&q=vsphere+server+install+guide&ei=RX7mSuPfNYyk8Aax5oWfBw&usg=AFQjCNH2s3xWksHp05f7SCB5lq1JK8z9QQ


Chow Ninjas