Some of the SP3 2005 installs will actually report wrong machine type after it completes (DOH!), especially x64 and itanium configs. Thus be careful, I had to resort to a complete reinstall but at least SQL Server installers are pretty well designed for complexity they handle, and never wipe out anything of serious value. Must have been some shipping or platform detect problem.. If only Vista installer and hardware checking was as 10% good as SQL Server's, perhaps all the bloat written in .NET might have been worth a huge penalty on *Server* systems.. Hang on, naah, it is as valuable as WordPerfect in DOS today. Again, it is incredible that in this day and age you can see that UI rendering as you launch the app. Bravo managed-guys.. more of that "innovation", please.