Sorry for the funky thread title but I've been playing with this thing since yesterday and find it exceedingly frustrating. The installation experience for this software is ridiculous. I've downloaded 3 packages- starter kit, installer, and source code. FWIW, I have worked as a developer for over 10 years and am currently a senior team lead building .Net projects. I have tons of VS, SQL, and .Net experience, and make my living doing it.

The starter kit says it is extracting some stuff, but good luck finding it. The setup doesn't say where it puts anything, and I see nothing in IIS or anywhere in Inetpub or program files. nor is there any sort of link in the Start Menu. Don't know what kind of starter kit it is... but certainly not beginner friendly. So I tried the installer.  Following the readme and normal website config procedure, I created the db and sql user and then attempted to run the installer. The folder permissions are set up fine, and the connection tests OK. But the database script install runs forever with no feedback or completion. I let it run for 8 hours last night and it looked exactly the same when I woke up... the silly red bar just scrolling, telling me nothing. It created all of one table... 'Version', and 3 sp's... 'Get', 'Update', and 'FindDatabaseVersion'. No matter how long it runs, that's all I get, with no feedback, error, or finish. I extracted the Source version and found a mdf file in the App_Data folder. But when I try to restore that the data files do not exist.

Can someone just tell a brother in what version and where I can find either a sql backup or script to create the db myself. I don't want to use any fancy install tools. I know how to restore a db, configure security, and configure IIS. And that's what I want to do. For such a big project I'm amazed the setup is not a little cleaner. Or should I be trying v5.0.0.0?

I'm just trying to get a demo site configured so myself and a friend can experiment with it. In theory a basic CMS could make our lives easier, and being a .Net I was hoping to avoid Drupal and PHP. But so far it is anything but straightforward. If it is non-obvious to me, then no way could my associate understand it.

Hmmm, where to start.  I've been there so I'm going to show compassion for your frustration.  I've found that blowing your lid is the absolutely fastest way to not get any support at all.  I've been developing for the frameworks Ibuyspy, Rainbow and DNN for some time.  Been a software developer for over 20 years, blah, blah, blah.

Anyway, I noticed something similar with the 4.9.1 starter kit using VWD 2005.  I have found this is typically a IE7 problem.  I've seen similar things with IE7 and Vista too.  What I finally did to get around the quirky install was to use the Auto option and it finished as expected. I can also install manually, but using VWD makes the project and developing and debugging modules much easier.  Of course there are multiple ways to skin that cat too.

The starter kit installs to the templates folder for your VWD ide locations found by looking at Tools->Options->Projects and Solutions (General), that is where you will find the user templates created from the .vsi file.  There are two, one for projects one for items.

I've built lots n lots of modules in dnn and what I have found the best setup is to install the starter file, then create a new VWD project of DNN (VB) and be sure to use the sql 2005 express database (unless you are dying to use regular sql server).  The IDE approach is hands down the quickest fastest way to get to developing modules.  If you are just looking to get a site up for beta testing the install coupled with sql server 2005 is not a bad way to go(2008 works fine too).  You might give Firefox a try for the startup install page, instead of IE.  Always works like a champ for me.

Creating the db manually is going to be a sketchy deal because when the install flys, it installs the db from a tip point, lets say 4.4.0 and then applies upgrades to that version to bring it forward to the current version.  There is not one script that runs to do the install sorry to say, but from the framework perspective, is the easiest way to manage multiple versions of the framework at one time as well as modules.

Hopefully this helps,

Jim

I understand your frustration with the installation. I think most of us have been there before with DNN. I normally rely on the installation and upgrade instructions from Mitchel Sellers blog, but I've run into installation problems in the past even when I've felt I followed the instructions. It can be pretty frustrating.