Could you please update the thread to give us more details about your environment, and the steps you took to reach the error you mentioned?

Hello Will,
I was trying to install Hotcakes 3.0 on my local machine - Win10 (64bit) , SQL Express 2012 (11.0.2218), .NET 4.5.2 and IIS 10.
The steps I took are very similar the ones when installing DNN9.
1. Unzipped Hotcakes and copied files to 'c:\Projects\Hotcakes' folder
2. Created new website 'Hotcakes.dev ' in IIS and pointed it to 'c:\Projects\Hotcakes' folder
3. Under permissions added 'Hotcakes.dev' AppPool with full control
4. Using SSMS created 'Hotcakes.dev' database, created dbUser and added it to created db, with 'db_owner' default schema
5. In browser opened 'Hotcakes.dev' - the install wizard runs,
6. Entered all required information's where database type is SQL Server/SQL Server Express Database, server name check passed, database check passed, security = user defined, database username check passed, run database as Database owner checked.
When I click on 'Continue' I get error 'ERROR: Hotcakes Commerce requires SQL 2012 (express or full product) to work '.
Prior installing Hotcakes I have installed DNN 9.1 without any problems.

Thanks,
Ezudin

In our own testing, we haven't yet run into any issues installing to SQL 2012 or SQL Express 2012. In your experience successfully installing other web applications, did you install to the same SQL Server version and instance?

Also, please know this for background information... We're using a built-in method to determine the SQL Server version number, shown below.

https://msdn.microsoft.co...rsion(v=vs.110).aspx

There's a small chance that when you installed, SQL Server wasn't ready or had some sort of issue that may have incorrectly reported the SQL Server version number. Have you retried the installation process yet?