Hello,

I'm trying to install DNN for the first time and I've been stuck for two days by now, not being able to connect to the database. Can anyone provide step-by-step instruction on how to do it on the configuration mentioned in the subject?

 Here's what I tried so far:

1. Downloaded  DotNetNuke_Community_07.00.03_Install.zip and extracted to C:\inetpub\wwwroot\DotNetNuke. The security properties on this folder contains IIS_IUSRS with Read & Execute, Read, List folder contents and Write permissions allowed. I've also set Full control permissions to NETWORK SERVICE user. Directories above (C:\inetpub and C:\inetpub\wwwroot) have Read & execute, List folder contents and Read permissions for these two users as well.
2. In IIS Manager I've converted the DotNetNuke directory to an Application and assigned DefaultAppPool to it. DefaultAppPool's identity is set to NetworkService. In Authentication I have Anonymous Authentication enabled and set credentials to Application pool identity. Also Forms Authentication and Windows Authentication are enabled (there's an alert about challenge-based authentication can't be used simultaneously, which I can get rid of by disabling Forms Authentication but it doesn't help either).
3. So far so good, I can access installation page in the browser through localhost/DotNetNuke. Here's where the problem starts. In SQL Server Management Studio I connect to '.' (local, unnamed instance of SQL Server 2012 - NOT EXPRESS!) and create new database called DotNetNuke. I added new Login NT AUTHORITY\NETWORK SERVICE and set it as the owner of the database (I tried with <default> and it didn't help either) by mapping it to DotNetNuke as dbo.
4. In the installation page of DNN I've set Database Setup to Custom, Database Type to SQL Server, Server Name to '.\MSSQLSERVER' (without quotes), Database Name to DotNetNuke, Security to Integrated and Run Database As 'Database Owner'. When I press Continue it says Veryfying Database Connection... for few seconds after which it fails with

ERROR:Index #: 0
Source: .Net SqlClient Data Provider
Class: 20
Number: 87

Message:

Any help would be greatly appreciated because I'm running out of ideas for, now already random configuration changes to make this work. Thanks in advance!

Thanks for your response! In the meantime I've installed successfully DNN with SQL Server Express 2012 to experiment with the framework itself. However for the production version we will need to use SQL Server 2012 Enterprise Edition. So, before I start again with the installation process I'd only like to make sure that you don't mean installing it on Express (where the database is stored in a single file in DNN site directory and things seems to work fine) but on full version of SQL Server? Because that's where the distinction causing the problems is, I guess...

Don't use the network service account as the DB user. Create a fresh one, make it DBO and use those credentials for your DNN website.

Mark