I had SQL Server 2008 Express (SP1) on Windows 7 Pro and it was working fine. After upgrading to Windows 10, SQL Server 2008 Express was still working normally. However, after the last Windows update (August 9, 2016), the service no longer starts up automatically. I can manually start the service and it works.
I decided to upgrade to SQL Server 2012 (SP3) instead, but the service still does not start up automatically after a restart. I also tried to delay the automatic startup, but nothing happens.
I checked all the Windows Updates and uninstalled them one by one to see which update was causing this, but to no avail. Even with system restore, rolling back to a month earlier, the SQL service still does not start.
In the Event Viewer, there are no errors or warning regarding SQL Server. This machine is a standalone machine, not on a domain, SQL server is only used locally for my personal development exercises.
I would like to avoid creating a .bat script and putting it in the startup folder. Although this solution works for me for now, I still can't figure out why the service is not starting.
As for the SQL Server Express 2012 (SP3), I've uninstalled and re-installed with the default settings (Instance name SQLEXPRESS) and also tried using the NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM account for the Database Engine. No luck. The only things I installed was the Database Engine and the Management Tools (Basic).
SQL Server logs didn't really have any flags I could troubleshoot with. CPU Affinity, Memory and all other settings have not been touched. .NET Framework 3.5 and 4.5 have been installed if that helps.
Question: How to get SQL Server service to start automatically when computer turns on?
