You're welcome

(1) When installing sqlserver 2008 - you have to change the location of the data during setup
(2) Reason why I click/change permissions of every folder of the WindowsImageBackup is that - running as administrator - I can sync the usb drive with another using robocopy


>Gregory, this sounds like an extremely well thought out plan. One we could all benefit from. Thanks for laying this out in detail.
>Cecil
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(1) installing sqlserver 2008 on Win7
>The Install warns about a compatibility issue. You can ignore that. But after the install you have to install sqlserver 2008 sp1
>
>(2) Install/uninstall
>Since vista, you can do an image backup
>Before I install anything significant - I take an image backup of my C: onto a USB drive
>You then have to go into each folder of WindowsImageBackup in that USB drive - It then asks you to change the access permissions of the folders
>
>After that I rename the folder - so that I have many image backups, eg
>
>WindowsImageBackup_20091208_1_afteractivationBeforePrinter
>WindowsImageBackup_20091210_2_afterprinter_beId_beforeSqlServer
>WindowsImageBackup_20091212_afterSqlServer_beforeVS2010
>If any installation fails or I want to go back to a point in time
>(1) I put a text file with the name of the folder of the image I want to restore in the USB drive
>(2) I rename the folder to WindowsImageBackup
>(3) I do an image restore (you have to boot from CD)
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>All my data is on a separate partition D: which I back up every day with robocopy
>I have put all the data of sqlserver on a separate partition E:
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>This means that I can restore the OS without touching my data
>

>
>I rarely do an uninstall - I simply do an image restore