GAinsworth,
I really didn't mean to offend you, really I didn't. I can also see where you are coming from and you have some valid points. I've been looking for a way to give back to the DNN community and I think you have given me a really good idea on what I could do to help out and hopefully inspired others also.
I'm a Systems Engineer / Architect so to be able to do my job I've got to have a very deep understanding of a lot of different technologies. Some times I forget that others don't have that kind of experience and are not interested in learning they just want to get it done.
So on with your problem the Database connection. As you know since you have installed SQL Server many times in the past, there is nothing out of the ordinary or different about the connection string that is used in the web.config file. It's just your normal everyday application friendly connection string. Also you probably already know that everybodys database connection string is going to be just a tiny bit different so this has to be generalized a little bit and it should be obvious what needs to be changed based on how you set up the database on your SQL Server. I'm not going to mention how to go about trouble shooting why it's not working because it's obvious that you have already checked the user you created in the database has read /write privs to the database and have correctly set up TCP connectivity through SQL network services or named pipes.
You have several installs of IIS web applications under your belt so I'm not quite sure why you are not clear on which users need full permissions to the directory which ones should not have anything other than read. It's a pretty common thing that web applications will need to create files in the directory sometimes. Since you have installed IIS on a server you also surly know which new users are created when IIS is installed right?
You commented on my comment about it not being the DNN documentation writters job to teach how to use or work with all of the other technologies that DNN uses. To that I say: How deep into the technologies did the documentation go when you where installing SQL Server last time? Or how about when you installed windows? Did you learn a whole lot about OS theory? We'll keep it simple, when you installed your e-mail client what page was it that they talked about configuring the interop between display, storage and retrieval. I think it was around page 6027 of the contents volumn A.
So if the DNN documentation tried to teach all of everything you needed to know your Launch Officer has got a BIG problem. If your Launch Officer goes in the hole with all of the background information he should have learned already to get the job that final 18 minutes could be used learning the last 1%. Not asking why he doesn't know how to do his job once his time is up.
The purpose of distributing the product is (I think I'm not on a team or anything) to get DNN in use. But by people who are used to working with IIS and web apps and databases. People that probably already know how to do a little work with VS2003 when they need to. In other words experienced web and database administrators and designers. There is probably a goal out there to get this in the hands of everyone but I really don't see being able to do that without a completly packaged product that comes with code that can handle every possible database configuration and all the different ways of installing the app in IIS.
I take it you did find the documentation. It's the first download in the download section.