Trying to add Reporting Services to an existing database instance and when I select the instance in the SQL installer Reporting Services is not an option.
3 Years ago this question was raised and there is still no answer. Why? Because there is a trick to all of this.
So what is the issue that prevents an instance of SQL Server Express 2008 from having Reporting Services added as a feature?
Simple. The installed instance is not the same version as the installing version being used to add the feature.
Using, for example as I was, a server with multiple instances, SQL Express 2008 R2 Advanced, the Reporting Services feature was not available for the instance that I wanted to add it to.
Installing a new instance worked fine as I tested this to make sure. This meant that it was not a service prerequisite that was missing.
Using http://stackoverflow.com/questions/141154/how-can-i-determine-installed-sql-server-instances-and-their-versions to get the following query:
[text]
<code>SELECT SERVERPROPERTY(‘productversion’), SERVERPROPERTY (‘productlevel’), SERVERPROPERTY (‘edition’)</code>
[/text]
Check each instance for its version. In my case I got
Original instance that will not accept Reporting Services showed as 10.50.4000.0 SP2 Express Edition (64-bit)
and
The newly installed instance with SSRS showed as 10.50.1600.1 RTM Express Edition with Advanced Services (64-bit)
Checking at http://blog.sqlauthority.com/2013/01/18/sql-server-a-list-of-various-sql-server-rtm-and-service-pack-number/ for the list of SQL editions I get:
| SQL Server 2008 Service Pack 2 | 10.00.4000.00 |
and
| SQL Server 2008 R2 RTM | 10.50.1600.1 |
Ok, so what to do about it?
Upgrading a single instance of SQL does not appear to be an option, at least I could not find a way to do so, when the server already had other instances with the later version.
In any case, the outcome was to install a fresh instance for the application with Reporting Services.