Appendix G: Known Issues Related to Setup and Unattended Installations

This section organizes most of the known "gotchas" associated with performing an unattended installation of SQL Server 7.0, MSDE 1.0 or SQL Server 7.0 Service Pack 1. Most of these topics were discussed in other areas of this document but are organized here for convenience.

Windows 2000 Security Policies

Windows 2000 provides an enhanced set of "security policies" that can be implemented enterprise-wide to help secure an organization's computing environment. Administrators can define security policies domain wide that can be enforced on any Windows 2000 system that is a member of that domain. These domain-side settings override local security policy settings for all Windows 2000 machines that are part of the domain.

Some of these security policies relate to passwords. Examples include:

• Enforcing password history.
  
  
• Enforcing a minimum or maximum password age.
  
  
• Enforcing a minimum password length.
  
  
• Enforcing password complexity requirements.

If a user or installation process attempts to create a user account that does not comply with administrator defined password security policies, account creation will fail with an error. This error is presented as a warning dialog stating that a process has attempted to add an account that does not satisfy a particular security policy. User intervention is required to clear this dialog. This is expected behavior, but has the unintended side effect of interrupting unattended installations of software when the installation routine attempts to add local or domain user accounts that do not comply with the security policies.

The installation executable for SQL Server 7.0 and MSDE 1.0 attempt to add a local Windows NT user account named SQLServerAgentCmdExec that is used by the SQLServerAgent service to execute programs and batch files using the CmdExec job subsystem. By default this account is created with a null password, which will most likely violate strict password security policies on Windows 2000. When this occurs during an unattended installation, an error dialog is displayed that requires user intervention to clear, effectively pausing the installation process until a user clears this dialog. After the dialog is cleared, installation proceeds successfully. However, the SQLServerAgentCmdExec account is not created, which does not pose a problem unless jobs must be assigned a security context other than LocalSystem.

The workaround is to either have a user monitor the unattended installation, or to remove the restrictive password security policies from either the local system or the domain prior to installation.

Unattended Upgrades Unsupported

As discussed in Database Upgrade Wizard, unattended upgrades of database server installations prior to release 7.0 are not supported.

Unattended Remote Installations Unsupported

Although database server installations on a remote machine are supported for interactive executions of the SQL Server 7.0 installation executable, unattended remote installations are not supported. The Microsoft Knowledge Base Article Q231735, "INF: SQL 7.0 Remote Unattended Install" details how an unattended remote installation can be performed if this is an absolute requirement.

Auto-Starting Database Services on Windows 95 and Windows 98

As discussed in Configuring Services to Auto-Start on Windows 95 and Windows 98, auto-starting the MSSQlServer and SQLServerAgent services on Windows 95 and Windows 98 can be difficult.

SQL Server 7.0 Service Pack 1 Issues

As stated in Service Pack Installation Images, unattended unpacking of SQL Server 7.0 Service Pack 1 binaries is not. Additionally, SQL Server 7.0 SP1 can take 12-20 minutes to install.

Endnotes

1. Thanks to Bruce McKinney, author of "Hardcore Visual Basic" published by Microsoft Press for an understanding of how to deal with 64-bit unsigned integers in Visual Basic
   
   
2. The figures noted here represent maximum disk space requirements for all system and shared components. The actual figure can be quite less depending upon whether some of these components are already installed.
   
   
3. The SQL Server Books Online for SQL Server 7.0 incorrectly states that svCDKey follows the format 28174-xxx-xxxxxxx-yyyy. The format given in this article is the correct format. svCdKey is only required for SQL Server 7.0 Standard or Enterprise Edition installations.
   
   
4. Location specified is for Office 2000 Standard, Professional, Premium and Small Business Editions on CD number 1.
   
   
5. Location specified is for Office 2000 Developer Edition on CD number 1.
   
   
6. Exit codes other than the ones listed in the table are common when running on Windows 95 and Windows 98, and do not necessarily indicate a failed installation.
   
   
7. See Appendix F: Setup.log ResultCode Values for typical ResultCode values that may result from a failed installation.
   
   
8. SQL Server 6.0 build numbers are not updated in the registry after service pack installation, and can only be checked by inspecting the value of the @@version Transact-SQL global variable.
   
   
9. DB-Library is not installed with MSDE. However, DB-Library applications can connect to an MSDE database server.
   
   
10. Not Required for MSDE 1.0; however, either Microsoft Access 2000 or the Office 2000 Server Extensions must be installed In order to install MSDE 1.0 Office 2000 Release. See Appendix A: Feature Comparison of SQL Server 7.0 and MSDE 1.0 for more information.
    
    
11. The -z option resolves an InstallShield overflow runtime error on systems with large amounts of free memory that occurs when a 16-bit InstallShield component scans for free memory.

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The information contained in this document represents the current view of Microsoft Corporation on the issues discussed as of the date of publication. Due to the nature of ongoing development work and because Microsoft must respond to changing market conditions, it should not be interpreted to be a commitment on the part of Microsoft, and Microsoft cannot guarantee the accuracy of any information presented after the date of publication.

This article is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS DOCUMENT.

Microsoft, ActiveX, BackOffice, FoxPro, Visual Basic, Windows, and Windows NT are registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation. InstallShield is a trademark of InstallShield Corporation. Other product or company names mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.

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