Plesk for Windows does NOT auto update, the feature is entierly not implemented.
What you do it Download plesk for Windows from the Parallels website, and run the installer, I upgraded today from 9.0.1 to 9.2.1
Sounds like it went smoothly (Did not check yet), but the update from 8.6 to 9.0.1 went smooth that is for sure
As for this update, the setup file (About 600MB) can be extracted if you open it with 7ZIP
So, I setup Windows in a VM with that old version of windows i had on the shelf for some time. (Thanks XEN HVM), Installed .NET 3.5 SP1 and the KB959209 , Setup MSSQL Express 2008
Things that got setup
SQL SERVER REPLICATION
FULL TEXT SEARCH
REPORTING SERVICES
BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE DEV STUDIO
Management Tools
SQL Client Connectivity
ms sync framework
From the SQL SERVER CONFIGURATION MANAGER, i enabled TCP/IP from protocols for SQL express
Opened a hole in the firewall for both MSSQLBinnsqlservr.exe and 90Sharedsqlbrowser.exe
and then from within Plesk i added the server
Server Host: mywin.server.com.MSSQLExpress
Admin User: sa
Admin Pass: Same pass i entered in Mixed authentication for the sa user !
Done, Plesk thinks this is a great thing i have done and accepts the thing instantly
MS advises that i read Understanding Surface Area – In setup help Minimize SQL Server 2008 surface Area
So, My PLESK 9.0.1 comes with .NET 2.0 Version 2.0.50727.0 is what PLESK reports, Installing .NET 3.5 SP1 and the KB959209 did not bump that from within PLESK.
So maybe with IIS i can assign 3.5 ?
Well, i am just setting up this server so i don’t know how plesk works in this regard yet, But i sure will very very soon.
As you may well know 3.5 is an upgrade to 2.0, it is not really different at the core, it is just a larger 2.0
I will let you know as soon as i do about how this thing works, for now i have to go finish setting up this thing to use MS SQL Express edition 2008.