Even though I have no intention of directly exposing reporting services to the Internet, I still felt that it made the most sense to install the web front end components for SQL RS on our web servers located in our presentation DMZ. However, this proved to be somewhat of a challenge.
Apparently, there is a check in the setup file that limits your installation options on Server 2008 web edition to the client tools only. It took awhile of searching on Google, but I finally found my first lead, and am embarrassed because I didn’t think of it myself. All of the various SQL components have their own MSI installers on the install media, located in either Tools or Servers. For reporting services, you need to run the SqlRun_RS.msi located in Servers\Setup.
I was still running into a problem however, soon after the MSI was launched I was getting a cryptic error message, followed by a second error message stating I didn’t have access to a directory. Even though I had launched windows explorer as an administrator, I still couldn’t get it to run. I decided to turn off UAC, reboot and try again. This time, the install was successful. I followed up the Sql RS install by installing SQL SP2, and then turned UAC back on.
Microsoft has a good document on how to configure SQL RS on Windows Server 2008, http://support.microsoft.com/kb/938245, which is what I used for the rest of the install. The document does state that under More Information that you can install SQL RS “On any edition of Windows Server 2008″.