Installing Sage Act Pro 2012 on windows 7

[kurtrackerman]

Has anyone had issues installing sage act pro 2012 on windows 7 pc's?  Mine keeps saying that SQL Server R 2 Express needs installed after I installed it.  It also says I can't continue to install until I load Service Pack 3 for windows XP, even though my laptop runs windows 7?  Anyone know how fix?

[gmartin]

Hello Kurt,

Welcome to the Sage ACT! Online Community!

For the 'XP Service Pack 3' issue, see the following article: KB Article 26077.

The installation of the SQL instance for ACT! would not occur until after the point where the XP message is displayed.  Try the installation with the fix in the article, if SQL still fails to install - please post the error.

[kurtrackerman]

The install worked, but now I can't open my database I transfered over to my laptop.  It states "SQL Database instance is unavailable"

[hitmeister]

It took me 2 weeks to get ACT 2012 installed on my laptop.  I had the same issues and then some.

The XP problem can be solved by making sure that Compatibility Mode is turned off on the installation files.  Right click on the files and select "properties".

There's a KB article on manually creating the ACT7 instance.   It'll show up in a KB search with the keywords "act7 instance" and either "install" or "create".

[LYates]

Kurt,

Is this a shared database or are you the only person that uses this database?

[kurtrackerman]

I am the only one that uses this database.

[kurtrackerman]

Is there something I can do to remove the sql part, since I am not on a network of other act users?

[gmartin]

The SQL installation is required for the computer on which the database will be physically located.  In your situation, that is your computer - so there isn't a way around it.  SQL will need to be installed on your computer.

Check to see if the 'SQL Server (ACT7)' service has been installed and is started, through the Services screen (instructions are in this article: KB Article 28216)

If the instance is not present, the next step would be to uninstall Microsoft SQL 2008 R2 (unless you have othe programs using it), and reinstall SQL using the instructions in this article: KB Article 26994

You may need to disable UAC before installing SQL (that may have caused the original issue), here are instructions: KB Article 25665

[kurtrackerman]

I uninstalled both Sage 2012Pro and SQL Server 2008 R2, and reinstalled both per the instructions.  Same issue when I try to open my database.  SQL Database instance unavailable.

[mrogers]

Run actdiag.  You should see that a server name <pcname>\ACT7

The Server Edition should show Microsoft SQL Server 2008 - Express Edition

To check that the Windows service for the server is actually running, run services.msc

and find SQL Server (ACT7) on the list of services.  Its Status should be "Started"

and its Startup Type should be "Automatic".