I have Windows 2000, SQL Server Express, and I have tried very hard.  I have followed the instructions, over and over.  I have tried changing little things here and there each time.  I have literally tried DOZENS of times.

It seems to me that the system is lacking in good feedback as to what is misconfigured.

Is there a way to make the problem smaller - for example "divide and conquer"??  It makes sense to me solve a series of smaller problems instead of a large problem with a lot of interactions.

Thank you in advance for any suggestions you people may have.

Johnny,
     Thank you for the concern.  As I said, I have tried literally dozens of times, so I have gotten all of the "classic" errors that have been put up.  The fixes suggested have not worked for me, that is why I am interested in changing how I try to fix the problem.  But, on the chance there is someting obvious, here is the way it has worked so far:


Windows2000
.Net Framework 1.1 and .Net Framework 2.0 installed
Visual Web Express
SQL Server Express
Extract Dotnetnuke Install 4.0.3 Zip to a subdirectory, for example "c:\dotnetnuke".
Set all rights to user "ASPNET" for the subdirectory "c:\dotnetnuke".
Go to SQL Server Express.
Make an empty database, call it "dotnetnuke.mdf".
I have tried making "ASPNET" the owner of this database, and also changing the owner to "DBO".
I have tried setting the SQL Server Express connection options to include "Named Pipes".
Go to "c:\dotnetnuke", rename "release.config" to "web.config".
Edit web.config:  Change in two places to point to the empty SQL Server Express database created.
I have tried many different changes to the connection string, double and triple checked the syntax, and even used syntax that was more for SQL Server, instead of SQL Express, just to see what would happen.
I have tried setting the SQL Server authorization(or is it authentication) to user and password, instead of Windows.
Configure IIS5 to point to the subdirectory "c:\dotnetnuke".
Start up Explorer web browser: The website looks like it is going to work.
The progress bar gets to about three quarters.  Then the progress bar goes back to zero and starts.
Then the error message:  I have had them all.  Unable to login, etc.
One of the most popular for me is the one where it cannot find the file in "App_Data", I seem to remember it is a template or something.

I get the impression, that once an install has not gone well, the best thing to do is start completely over.
So then what I do is erase everything and try something slightly different.
I has been a lot of work.

Finally, in desperation, I remembered that I had had some early success using the "vsi" template with Visual Web Developer Express.  What I did was start up Visual Web Developer Express,  start a new website, use the Dotnetnuke template, the files get copied to my same usual subdirectory "c:\dotnetnuke".  I then right clicked on the project, and added an empty SQL Server Express database.  I then rename the "release.config" to "web.config".  I then change in two places in web.config to point to my new, empty database.  Save all files, shut down Visual Web Developer Express.  Then, point IIS5 to the correct, subdirectory, access the page with Explorer.

THAT WORKS!!!!

But that still leaves the question as to what is going on with the "install from zip" way!!??!!

Thanks for reading this far, maybe this will help some other people.