The local computer is not a member of a windows failover

Don't make the same mistake as I did recently which was installing the wrong edition of Windows Server 2008 R2 in order to make use of Failover Cluster services.

I installed Standard edition of Windows Server 2008 R2 but in order to make use of the Failover Cluster services and managment snap-in, you need either Windows Server 2008 R2 Datacentre or Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise.

Attempting to install SQL Failover Cluster in standard edition will give you the following error message during the validation process: The local computer is not a member of a windows failover

This document describes the whole administration process: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc731844(WS.10).aspx

Northwind sample database for SQL Server 2005 Express

I installed SQL Server 2005 Express edition on my new laptop the other day (part of Visual Studio 2008). And I realised that it doesn't include the widely known Northwind sample database that comes with other editions of SQL Server.

Anyway you can download the script to create this database here. The installer is for SQL Server 2000 but works on 2005 as well.