Sunday, June 02, 2013

SQL Server 2012 Install Fails on Server Core 2008 R2 VHD - Object reference not set to an instance of an object.

So, I'm going through the Administering Microsoft SQL Server 2012 Databases book for the 70-462 certification exam. The only way, I could quickly get access to Windows Server Core for the test exercises was to download the VHD provided by Microsoft.

Well, strange thing. It is missing a critical registry key. Without this key, SQL Server fails with a horribly vague error. To make it more fun, while the description tells me to look in a file named summary.txt, there is no file named summary.txt anywhere.
The following error occurred:
Object reference not set to an instance of an object.

Error result: -2147467261
Result facility code: 0
Result error code: 16387

Please review the summary.txt log for further details
Slightly more - but also unhelpful - information can be found in the Component Updater log file generated by the installer.
Exception summary:
The following is an exception stack listing the exceptions in outermost to innermost order
Inner exceptions are being indented

Exception type: System.NullReferenceException
    Message: 
        Object reference not set to an instance of an object.
    Data: 
      DisableWatson = true
    Stack: 
        at Microsoft.SqlServer.Configuration.MsiExtension.ArpRegKey.CleanupPatchedProductRegistryInfo()
        at Microsoft.SqlServer.Configuration.MsiExtension.SetPatchInstallStateAction.ExecuteAction(String actionId)
        at Microsoft.SqlServer.Chainer.Infrastructure.Action.Execute(String actionId, TextWriter errorStream)
        at Microsoft.SqlServer.Setup.Chainer.Workflow.ActionInvocation.ExecuteActionHelper(TextWriter statusStream, ISequencedAction actionToRun, ServiceContainer context)
Anyway, after a couple of hours of messing around with it, I find a post on the Microsoft Forums that finally sheds some light on it.  Apparently the HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Uninstall registry key doesn't exist in the distributed virtual hard drive. Either adding this key or running an installer that creates it seems to fix the problem.

Hopefully, this will save others some debugging time and effort.

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