Search Server Express 2008 Notes Part 1

So after being convinced by Steve S at the Singapore Sharepoint User’s Group, I decided to test out Search Serve Express edition on one of my existing Sharepoint Sites.

So as Steve said, my existing sharepoint search could not search inside PDFs. ( I confirmed this by uploading a PDF document and searching for contents inside it). Also, I made sure to make backup of the entire server before I started with the upgrading process. Since the existing site was still ver 2.0 I wanted to upgrade it to ver 3.0 before using search server express on it.

So Im watching Joel Oleson’s video guide first! http://www.slideshare.net/joeloleson/sharepoint-upgrade-wss-20-to-wss-30-and-sps-2003-to-moss-2007-by-joel-oleson-and-shane-young-presentation.

First problem encountered: LinkId=103318. This was right after we ran the preparationtool (everything complete). I am stuck at this point.
sharepoint_search_error

The system already has WSS v3.0 sp2. But it is running on SQL 2008 Not SQL 2005. Could this be the cause?
Update: We setup a new Virtual server with windows 2003 and NO SQL server installed, so that the sql express (MSDE) is used.
We were able to make it work and I love this!!
Below is a screen shot of the Search Server Admin Page/Report
searchserverexpress