Installing Quality Center 11 on Windows 2008 (Virtual PC)

Have you ever wanted to try out Quality Center but not had a server to install it on? Well Microsoft have released a pre-configured virtual PC for Windows server 2008 which has a 30 day trial (the same as Quality Center). So providing your machine is capable of running Virtual PC's then that's pretty much all you need in order to trial Quality Center and it's features. This is great if like me, you wish to play round with Quality Center at home or test out Quality Center upgrades.

So before you jump in, you'll need to download the following:

1. Microsoft Virtual PC to run the server (free).
2. Windows server 2008 virtual pc file (free).
3. HP Quality Center 11 download (free, but you need to register with HP)
4. SQL Server - I chose to use SQL Server 2005 Express (also free):
1. SQL Server 2005 Express.
2. Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio Express.

I'm going to try and keep this short, so if you're in need of any extra information have a search for it online or drop me a question in the comments.

So here is what you need to do to install Quality Center 11 onto the Windows Server 2008 Virtual PC:

1. Run the virtual machine.
2. To grant the virtual machine internet access:
• Change the virtual machine's network settings to NAT mode
• In the virtual machine, go to the network settings and change the local network properties to use the DNS server 192.168.131.254 (see screenshot below)
3. Install IIS on the server. I followed the steps on this page.
4. Install SQL Server 2005 Express
5. Install SQL Server 2005 management studio
6. Use SQL Server 2005 management studio to change the password for the SA account.
7. Using the SQL Server Configuration Manager, ensure that the SQL Server Browser Service is Running (I had to enable this service as it was not on by default).
8. Install QC 11 onto the server
9. The ALM platform configuration wizard should be self explanatory, I chose these options:
• License key - Quality Center Enterprise Edition
• Application Server - JBoss (if you see an option to use IIS as the webserver, choose it)
• Database Server: see screenshot below. Note: I've renamed the server to win2008
10. Then finish off the Wizard. I found that the JBoss service failed to launch, so there is an additional step you need to take:
• Navigate to C:\ProgramData\HP\ALM\jboss\bin and execute the run.bat file. This will configure the jboss server for you. 
11. Now if you open Internet Explorer on the server and navigate to http://localhost:8080/qcbin/ you should see the Quality Center splash screen - that's it, QC is setup for you!

Resolved: Quality Center 11 Installation Issue "Failed to validate database parameters"

I've been having issues trying to get Quality Center 11 installed, I kept getting the "Failed to validate database parameters" error message on the database server screen.

The server setup was as follows:

Windows Server 2003
SQL Server 2005 Express

There were a couple of things I had to do:

1. Under the SQL Server Configuration Manager, ensure that the SQL Server Browser Service is Running (I had to enable this service as it was not on by default).
2. The DB Host name should include the server name followed by \sqlexpress. So on my box it was set to: win2003\sqlexpress. Note: I have tried this on Windows Server 2008 and I did not need to provide \sqlexpress (although you do need to enable mixed authentication mode)
3. Use MS-SQL Authentication - use the sa account details for the db admin and username details (you should check that you know these details first)

 Hopefully that should get you past the database page - it took me hours to get around all of this!