Phenquestions
In my experience troubleshooting SQL, install issues are one of the hardest and most time-consuming processes. Most of the times it's a hit- and-miss. It takes a lot of research and experience to figure out the solution to the new problem that arises when troubleshooting SQL.
I have been working with SQL install issues for a part of a program for past six years with a different version of SQL, from SQL 2000 to the latest 2012.
In this coming weeks, I'll be discussing some of the common SQL install error, on Windows, and possible troubleshooting steps to resolve it. Don't get me wrong I won't be talking about working inside SQL. In this series, I'll be covering only SQL installation related problems on Windows.
Managed SQL Server Installer has stopped working
In this article, we'll discuss how to resolve Managed SQL Server Installer has stopped working when trying to install SQL Server 2008 R2 / 2012.
So the scenario is when you click on “New SQL Server stand-alone installation or added features to an existing installation”, it will seem like it will load and then you get an error “Managed SQL Server Installer has stopped working”.
When we first got this error message I took a lot of hours to figure it out. My first thought was it was a corrupted download, so I went and re-download the version from Microsoft website and checked the MD5 checksum value to make sure it's a proper download. It's a good idea to check the value if you were downloading and installing a large installation file. I would recommend to check out Md5Checker. See more here. But that didn't really help with this error.
My next thought was the computer was connected to Domain network. So I logged in as local admin. Trust me when it comes to SQL installation it's best to always install it under Local administrator's account, rather than install it under Domain administrator because even though you are the domain administrator, you still might have some security restrictions. For a clear understanding, it's best to refer to this TechNet article.
Anyway, back to the topic - well that didn't really help in this case. Later I noticed some errors in Event log pointing to .NET Frameworks. Now I got a clue, and I knew how to proceed. I needed to reinstall .NET Framework in order to resolve this. But it's built-in to Windows 7. So I needed to disable and enable again. I did so as follows:
Go to Control Panel. Open Programs and Features option. Select the Turn Windows Features On or Off function
Find Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5.1 option and uncheck it and reboot
Now run SFC /SCANNOW so that we can make sure if there is any corruption, it will get fixed.
Then go back and enable all options within the Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5.1 option
Now reboot once again. It might take longer to reboot.
Now I tried to install again, and this time it bypassed the error and got installed successfully.
Now an additional tip, In case if you are installing SQL 2008 R2 on Windows 7 and you have .NET Framework 4.0 or 4.5 installed, it's best to uninstall it completely until you finish the SQL installation if you are getting this error.
I hope this article help you resolve this problem. In coming weeks I'll discuss more SQL install related problem on Windows.
