Okay...this has bothered me for years. WTF is up with installing SQL server?
First of all, no SQL disk I have ever had does an autorun install. Maybe that's because it's almost always an MSDN disk. But you have to dig through the directory structure to find the install directory. Fine. it's in x86. I dig that. But in the setup directory, you have SQLSTP.EXE and SETUPSQL.EXE. ALWAYS! Both of them! In every version of SQL I have ever installed.
Invariably, I forget which one to run. Why? I don't install SQL every day. So I have a 50% chance of running the wrong one. I usually pick SQLSTP (which I read as "SQL Setup", and it seems to exist for the sole purpose of telling you to run "SETUPSQL.EXE". Why?
Annoying.