A short installation tip

The first CTP of SQL Server 2014 is available for almost two months. For those of you that are about to install it now on Windows Server 2012, here are some advices to make the process smooth.

First and foremost, perform this  on a separate VM. As with every CTP this one also has specific limitations and it is better to know them and plan the installation process. They are listed here, but shortly it is about the following rule:

You need to install the CTP on a clean machine, meaning – no other versions of SQL Server Server and client installations and tools, Visual Studio 2012 or earlier.

That is why I usually make a clean virtual machine from scratch and perform installations and tests on it. You can’t rely on a clean uninstall process of the CT release, so basically what I am do is I store the versions/snapshots of the Virtual Machines and return to a version just after OS installation state in order to test the next CTP. The same I did with 2014 CTP1 in order to test it on Windows Server 2012.

I finally upgraded my laptop to Windows 8 Pro, and I am very excited of having a HyperV on Windows 8 for SLAT enabled processors like mine, and >4GB RAM! Here is more info about it and how to configure it – http://blogs.windows.com/windows/b/extremewindows/archive/2013/06/20/hyper-v-support-in-windows-8.aspx Now I am fully and happily utilizing Client HyperV on Windows 8 while creating and running VMs on my laptop instead of (and in addition to) my dedicated test lab server.

The Installation of the SQL Server 2014 CTP1 is the same as SQL Server 2012, with the same Installation Center interface, Wizards and steps, so I will not dive into details here.

The only problem I had was installing the .NET Framework 3.5 on Windows Server 2012. You just can’t do this in Windows Server 2012 in normal way using Computer Management and trying to enable this feature. The problem that appears is very strange, it says that the source path of the installation is not valid. Trying to give the correct source path (I am mounting ISO on D: drive on the VM) doesn’t solve the problem. Why I had to go there?

You know that the .NET is an installation prerequisite for SQL Server. Actually the first check of SQL Server 2014 CTP1 Setup wizard warns you about not having .NET 3.5, but as I do usually, I rely on the operating system to install it for me. And it does, except in this case when the Windows Server 2012 just cant do it. When installation of SQL Server began, at some point it stopped and it showed a message that there was no .NetFX3 dll, the message was a stop message but when I clicked OK, the setup continued. I haven’t wait to see if he setup will finish or to test what exactly will not work after that. I just stopped the SQL Server setup process by pressing the Cancel button. And here came the second problem. It took a while for the Setup process to close. And I start to implement the workaround on installing the .NET 3.5  The following post contains the solution, running the command in the cmd prompt was enough and worked for me:

dism /online /enable-feature /featurename:NetFX3 /all /Source:d:\sources\sxs /LimitAccess

Note: Source should be the Windows installation disc. In my case, this was located on D:

I highly recommend you to perform this step first before starting SQL Server Installation!

While doing this I was very surprised to see a never-closing message from the SQL Server ScenarioEngine:
The wrong drive, please insert volume…

ScenarioEngine has stopped working message

Check online for a solution later and close the program

I though the SQL Server installation process was successfully canceled!? Obviously it was not!

The only way to go trough this was to perform a force restart of the VM, which I did after successful installation of .NET 3.5

After that I started the SQL Server Setup and it completed successfully.

That’s all! Enjoy your SQL Server 2014 CTP1 on Windows Server 2012!