SQL Server 2005 Express on Windows 7: Service does not start during installation

During SQL Server 2005 Express installation on a computer with Windows 7 Home Premium x64, the installation failed upon trying to start the instance service.

No log file was created in the instance log folder itself (.../MSSQL.1/MSSQL/LOG). Hopefully this could be a hint for something but it is certainly new to me.

Here's the final few lines from the Setup Bootstrap logs though:

<Func Name='LaunchFunction'>
Function=Do_sqlScript
<Func Name='GetCAContext'>
<EndFunc Name='GetCAContext' Return='T' GetLastError='203'>
Doing Action: Do_sqlScript
PerfTime Start: Do_sqlScript : Wed Jun 01 11:18:50 2011
Service MSSQL$PPSLPMSQLEXP with parameters '-m SqlSetup -Q -qLatin1_General_CI_AS -T4022 -T3659 -T3610 -T4010' is being started at Wed Jun 01 11:18:50 2011
Unable to start service (1053)
        Error Code: 0x8007041d (1053)
Windows Error Text: The service did not respond to the start or control request in a timely fashion.
  Source File Name: sqlsetuplib\service.cpp
Compiler Timestamp: Sat Oct 25 08:47:19 2008
     Function Name: sqls::Service::Start
Source Line Number: 316



---- Context -----------------------------------------------


Setting status of unmanaged components and removing unmanaged resources
Do_sqlScript
SqlScriptHlpr
Start service MSSQL$PPSLPMSQLEXP



Error Code: 1053
MSI (s) (E8!14) [11:22:20:159]: Product: Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Express Edition -- Error 29503. The SQL Server service failed to start. For more information, see the SQL Server Books Online topics, "How to: View SQL Server 2005 Setup Log Files" and "Starting SQL Server Manually."
The error is  (1053) The service did not respond to the start or control request in a timely fashion.
.

Error 29503. The SQL Server service failed to start. For more information, see the SQL Server Books Online topics, "How to: View SQL Server 2005 Setup Log Files" and "Starting SQL Server Manually."
The error is  (1053) The service did not respond to the start or control request in a timely fashion.
.

If it is of any help, the computer is HP Pavilion dv8 Notebook PC with Windows 7 Home Premium x64, 4086 MB RAM, Intel(R) Core(TM) i7 CPU Q 720 @ 1.60GHz CPU.

Thanks in advance.

This looks to fit your description almost perfectly (except that you are on Windows 7, but probably does not matter): http://support.microsoft.com/kb/954835

If it solves your problem, please come back and mark that question as answered.