How to Download and Install SQL Server 2025 (Step-by-Step Guide)

 Hi All, Microsoft has finally released SQL Server 2025 for general availability which they call as "AI-ready Enterprise Database" is fully loaded with AI capabilities and cloud integration for seamless availability. Today let's learn how we can download and install it for completely free and do some hands on.

SQL Server 2025 General Availability Screen

SQL Server 2025 system requirements: Before we start and download the setup , we must have a look at the Prerequisites or the minimum requirement for installation, which as below. 

Hardware Requirements: The hardware needs vary significantly between the lightweight Express edition and the more robust Standard/Enterprise editions.

Component	Minimum Requirement	Recommended Specification
Processor	x64 Processor, 1.4 GHz	2.0 GHz or faster (Multi-core)
Memory (Express)	512 MB	1 GB or more
Memory (Other)	1 GB	4 GB to 16 GB+ (scales with data)
Hard Disk Space	6 GB available space	20 GB+ (SSD recommended)
Display	Super-VGA (800x600)	1920x1080 (HD)

Software Requirements: SQL Server 2025 is designed to run on the latest Windows environments and requires specific framework support.

Category	Requirement
Operating System	Windows 10 (1607+), Windows 11, or Windows Server 2019/2022/2025
.NET Framework	.NET Framework 4.7.2 or higher (Setup will prompt if missing)
Network Protocol	Shared Memory, Named Pipes, TCP/IP
Architecture	64-bit only (x86/32-bit is no longer supported)
Management Tool	SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) 21 or 22

How to download the SQL server 2025: 

Step1: Go to the download link https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/evalcenter/evaluate-sql-server-2025

Step2: Under heading "Get started for free": click on Download the exe as highlighted below.

    

SQL Server 2025 Download link Screen

An application file will be downloaded as shown below in default "Download" if path is not changed.

    

SQL Server 2025 Download file Screen

Step3: Now double click on the above downloaded application file and proceed. You will get a prompt from windows to allow the application to proceed, click , YES and the Installation starts as below. 

It gives three options:

Basic: It will install SQL Server with default settings, good for new SQL users to start with. Faster to install. 

Custom : It gives opportunity to do pick the features as required and takes little longer to install.

Download Media: This enabled to download the setup exe file which can be used to install SQL server later or on some other machine.

We will go with Custom option in this tutorial. 

    

SQL Server 2025: Select Installation type Screen

Step4: Click "Custom" and below screen appears: It gives below information.

Media Location : It is the path where SQL server setup files will be downloaded. You can configure this as per your convenience. This screen also shows information about the drive space where media file is getting downloaded and downloaded file size as shown below. 

SQL Server 2025: Select Installation Media Location Screen

Step5: Click on Install: Media fill will be downloaded and below screen appears. 

SQL Server 2025: Installation center Screen

Now to start Installation, click on the Installation link present on the left side on above screen and it will take us to below screen:

Step6: Click on "New SQL Server standalone installation and or add features to an existing installation"

    

    

SQL Server 2025: Installation center : Installation Page

Next screen gives the options to choose the different free edition as per our choice as required. Lets see what are main difference between all these free editions.

SQL Server 2025 Installation : Select Edition Screen

• Evaluation: Full-feature trial for testing before purchase. Free (but time-limited).License: 180-day expiration (typical for past SQL versions).Technically identical to Enterprise Edition (all features enabled).Intended for short-term evaluation, POCs, testing feature sets, benchmarking, etc. Not allowed in production. After 180 days, the engine stops working until converted to a paid license (Enterprise/Standard).

• Enterprise Developer:  Full Enterprise feature set for development only, free available. License: Restricted strictly to non-production use. Feature-identical to SQL Server Enterprise - every advanced capability e.g. Always On AGs (multi-node),Advanced security (TDE, row-level security, etc.),In-memory OLTP, Columnstore Index, data compression, Advanced BI & ML features. Intended for developers, testers, labs, and DevOps environments. Not licensed for production workloads of any kind. Difference from Evaluation: No expiration, but strictly non-production. It is a permanent dev/test license.

• Standard Developer: Test and develop using the Standard Edition feature set. Free available. License: Non-production use only. Feature-identical to SQL Server Standard (not Enterprise).Use this when your production environment will be Standard Edition and you want environment parity. Lacks major Enterprise features: Limited Always On AGs (Basic AG),No online indexing or advanced compression, No in-memory OLTP, Limited machine learning/BI features, Also not licensed for production. Difference vs Enterprise Developer: Same “free for development” licensing model, BUT features restricted to Standard Edition level.

• Express:  Lightweight database for small applications or learning. Free available, permanent. License: Free for production use. Can be used in production, unlike Development or Evaluation. Feature-limited and resource-limited, Max database size: around 10 GB per database,1 GB memory per instance (historically; may vary slightly in 2025), Limited CPU usage (1 socket or a few cores), Does not include SQL Agent (except Express with Advanced Services has partial scheduling).No advanced features (AGs, ML, Columnstore, etc.)Suitable for: Small apps, Local dev, Lightweight web or desktop applications, Learning SQL Server.

SQL Server 2025 Installation : Edition Comparison screen

Here we will go with "Enterprise Developer Edition" and proceed. So lets choose the same and click next.

SQL Server 2025 Installation : Select Enterprise Developer Edition Screen

Accept the license terms and click next.

SQL Server 2025 Installation : Select License Terms Screen

On the Microsoft Update page, you can leave the check box as unchecked as its recommended but not mandatory. click next to proceed. 

SQL Server 2025 Installation : Select Microsoft Update Page Screen

On Install Rules page, look for any Failed status rules else proceed by clicking next. 

SQL Server 2025 Installation : Install Rules Screen

On Azure Extension for SQL Server page, you need a valid azure account and subscription to proceed further. You can read clearly on this page that it is required for Centralized Management through Azure Portal. You can even use your free azure subscription here. For now, I am leaving it and will proceed further. 

SQL Server 2025 Installation : Select Azure Extension for SQL server Screen

Now we have Feature Selection Page, this is very important page to decide which all features we need.

SQL Server 2025 Installation : Feature Selection Screen

Basically here we have 2 main type features:

• Instance Features : These are installed separately for each SQL Server instance. Each instance can have its own configuration, databases, and services. If you install multiple instances, each one can have different instance features.

• Shared Features: Shared features are installed once per server, not per instance.

I have selected SQL server replication, AI Services and Full-Text search and no shared features as shown above. Click next to proceed.

On the Instance Config page, let's go with Named instance "SQLwithVJ2025". Point to note, a default instance has always a fix name and ID "MSSQLSREVR". Click next to proceed. 

Named Instance: SQLwithVJ2025

SQL Server 2025 Installation : Instance Configuration Screen

Default Instance : 

SQL Server 2025 Installation : Instance Configuration Screen

Now comes , Server Configuration page, here we decide things related to Service Accounts and we need to be completely aware about these settings.

1. SQL Services- Which service is responsible for which activity. 
2. SQL Service Account - Accounts associated with each service. 
3. Startup Type- Automatic/Manual/Disabled. 
4. Grant Perform Volume maintenance Task- Checked/ Unchecked. 

I am leaving every setting as default except SQL Server Agent which will have Automatic startup type. 

SQL Server 2025 Installation : Server Configuration : Service Account Screen

On collation tab let it be default which is used for English language. Just to remember, in collation, CI_AS stands for "Case Insensitive Accent Sensitive" which means while writing SQL code the word "vivek is same as VIVEK" means lower case and upper case are treated same with this collation. 

SQL Server 2025 Installation : Server Configuration : Collation Screen

Now we will do Database Engine Configuration: It has 6 Tabs ,we will go each of them one-by-one.

1. Server Configuration:
• Always choose Mixed Mode authentication unless its not a specific requirement for only Windows Authentication. 
• Specify a strong password and save it for future. This is for default sysadmin account "sa" which is generally disabled after server installation/setup is completed. 
• You can add "current user" by clicking "Add current user". We generally add this, usually a SQL Server DBA is responsible for this task and he/she must be added as a sysadmin. 

SQL Server 2025 Installation : Database Engine configuration screen

 

2. Data Directories: You must have separate disk drives for your system DB files, Data files, Log Files and Backup files to have maximum disk performance.

SQL Server 2025 Installation: Database Engine Configuration: Data Directories Screen

3. TempDB: New setup of SQL server auto detects the total number of VCores on the host system and suggests number of tempdb files. We must follow few rules to prevent TempDB contention and best tempdb performance.  

•   Always host TempDB files in a separate drive from other DB files. 
•   Temp DB drive must have comparatively better Disk I/O performance. 
•   Use 4 temp DB Data files (if you have a 4 core setup), each of same size and auto growth setup (in MB instead of %)
•  Temp DB initial file size and auto-growth must be proportionate to your maximum DB size.  This can be decided by observing DB size and number of transactions on the biggest DB on the server. 

                          

SQL Server 2025 Installation: Database Engine Configuration: TempDB Screen

4. MaxDOP:  This is also auto detected during setup but you must decide this as per your environment requirements and should be adjusted by observing SQL server load at different conditions. I will be using 0 which is default and let SQL server decide when to use Parallelism as its own. On a busy OLTP system, having more CPU cores, it must be setup as some values instead of default.  

   

SQL Server 2025 Installation: Database Engine Configuration: MAXDOP Screen

5. Memory: This screen provides to setup Min and Max server memory use by SQL server, I will go with recommended values which SQL server auto detects as below. You can change it at any time with other values after observing your system performance. 

SQL Server 2025 Installation: Database Engine Configuration: Memory Screen

6. Filestream : We will leave it as disabled and will work on this later. Just to mention, it is a feature that lets you store large binary data (like documents, images, videos) in the file system, while still managing it through SQL Server. Click next to proceed.

SQL Server 2025 Installation: Database Engine Configuration: File Stream Screen

Finally now we are on Read To Install page, you must have a look at this page as its a summary of all your settings made till now on previous screens. Any deviation from your setup requirement can be caught here before installation starts. One more important thing to note on this screen is, an ".ini" file is created at "Configuration File path". This file can be used as a standard for all suture SQL server setups and you can use the same config file for similar installation on other host servers. finally click to start installation. 

SQL Server 2025 Installation: Database Engine Configuration: Ready To Install Screen

Installation progress screen can be seen running the installation, It shouldn't take more than 15-20 mins to complete. 

SQL Server 2025 Installation: Database Engine Configuration: Installation Progress Screen

Installation completed successfully with below messages. I would recommend you to view the Summary Log file shown at the bottom of the screen to understand what it contains and how it is useful in case of any error. 

SQL Server 2025 Installation Successful Screen.

Restart the system as required and you are ready to use your newly installed SQL server 2025 On-Prem to do hands on. 

Follow the steps in your local or non-prod environment and let me know if you faced any issue. Leave your comments and questions and I will be happy to learn more with you.