Quick Guide to Install Microsoft SQL server Express 2019

January 31, 2024 Mr Geis

What is SQL Server Express edition?

SQL server Express 2019 is a free and feature-limited edition of SQL Server that has been being published since the SQL Server 2005 version and it still continues to be published by Microsoft. Nowadays, Microsoft has released the Express edition of SQL Server 2019. We can use this edition for lightweight data-driven mobile, desktop or web applications. However, when we decide to use this edition, the supported features have to be checked in the Editions and supported features of SQL Server 2019.

For example, the database size can not exceed 10 GB and the SQL Server Agent feature is not supported by the Express editions. As a result, we must take the limited features into consideration before planning to use the SQL Express Editions.

Download SQL Server Express 2019 edition

We can download the express edition of SQL Server 2019 from the Microsoft official web site. On this download page, we can find out the express edition download link. When we click the Download now link, we can begin the download process.

After downloading the setup package, we can start the installation steps. We will right-click the installation file which is named SQL2019-SSEI-Expr.exe and select the Open option in order to start the installation process.

Installing SQL Server Express 2019 edition

After the completion of the download, the SQL Server Installation Center will meet us. In this screen, besides installing the SQL instance, we are able to install SQL Server Reporting Service, SQL Server Management Studio or SQL Server Data Tools and we can also upgrade the installed version of SQL Server.

Now, we will select the New SQL Server stand-alone installation or add features to an existing installation option to start the installation:

SQL Server Installation Center

We will accept the license terms and other details on the Licence Terms screen and click Next:

SQL Server Setup Licence Terms screen

The Product Update screen checks the latest updates of the SQL Server Setup and if we don’t have an internet connection, we can disable the Include SQL Server product updates option:

SQL Server Setup Product Updates screen

In the Install Rules screen, the potential issues will be checked by SQL Setup that might be occurred during the installation. We will click the Next button and skip the next step:

SQL Server Setup Install Rules screen

In the Feature Selection screen, we can select the features which we want to install. For this installation, we will disable the following features:

Machine Learning Services and Language Extensions
Full-Text and Semantic Extractions For Search
PolyBase Query Service for External Data
LocalDB

At the same time, we can specify the installation path of the SQL Server through the Instance root directory option:

In the Instance Configuration screen, we will give a name to the SQL instance but we will not change the default name of the installation. Click the Next button:

In the Server Configuration screen, we can determine the startup type of the SQL Server Database Engine and SQL Server Browser services. We will not change the default options:

In the Database Engine Configuration screen, we will specify the authentication mode of the SQL Server. We have two options on this screen.

In the Windows authentication mode, the SQL logins are controlled by the Windows operating systems and it is best practice to use this mode.

In the Mixed Mode, the SQL Server can be accessed with both Windows authentication and SQL Server authentication. For this installation, we will select the Mixed Mode option, so we will set the password of the sa login of the SQL Server and we will also add a windows login. We can directly add the current windows user to the windows through the Add Current User button:

SQL Server Setup Database Engine Configuration