Well, I'm back to getting success on the database scripts, but no starting data is being placed in the portals table, so the website can't be viewed. If I try to run install again, I get an error that an xml file can't be found...I presume the xml file holds the initial config data and is deleted after install to prevent overwriting an existing install?

So, I'm back to square one...people suggest I keep trying over and over until it works, but what exactly should I do to "start over"? Do I need to delete all the site files and drop all the dB tables? or is there an easier way to reinitialize an install?

Hi: Thanks for trying to help Josh...but I don't think any of the issues you brought up are in play. Before running control-f5 to build or anything else, I'm modifying the connection strings to point to the SQL Server and database I've set up, and I'm using a user account on the SQL Server with DBO permissions on the database. Each time I've run the install, I've tested both write permissions and dB connection permissions, and they've always tested OK. I know the database connection is fine because DNN is able to create the tables...obviously if it has create permissions it would also have insert permissions on the tables, especially if it's DBO, it can do anything in that dB.

I suspect that a configuration file is not being written to pass the initial portal name to the script that populates the portals table...but that's speculation.