Well the wait is over. SQL2008 is now RTM.
Now the fun begins, installation on my development machine. And would you know it - Failure :-(
Unable to to install SQL2008 as it was failing the VSShellInstalledRule setup check. NOTE:This error was also catching me even when BIDS was not selected from the setup options.
This rule checks for a previous release of Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 is installed on this computer. Upgrade Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 to the SP1 before installing SQL Server 2008. Well I did install SP1 (Beta) and yes I did get caught out by the message "Install failed - rolling back" as documented on the download page.
Going through the SQL setup error logs I found where this was failing
Slp: Sco: Attempting to get registry value kind for value SP
Slp: Found Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 edition IDE, language 1033, SP level 1.
Perfect I thought, see I did install SP1 what's your problem...keep looking through error log and found this gem
Slp: Sco: Attempting to get registry value kind for value SP
Slp: Found Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 edition VSTS, language 1033, SP level 0.
Slp: Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 edition VSTS, language 1033 does not have required SP level. Upgrade Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 to the SP1 before installing SQL Server 2008.
Ahh...the error I'm getting...It appears to me that SP1 & my 'playing' around only updates the reg key for the standard studio not team suite which is what I have installed.
So, updating the registry with the same values from the IDE Hive into the VSTS hive
SOFTWARE\Microsoft\DevDiv\VS\Servicing\9.0\VSTS
...re-run SQL final installation check & all things now progressing well. Time now to get going & setup my policies, some geo coding data and other good things SQL2008 has to offer....
Select @@version -- Microsoft SQL Server 2008 (RTM) - 10.0.1600.22 (Intel X86) Jul 9 2008 14:43:34