Tag Archives: Windows Installer

Apply CU2 for SQL2012 SP1 – Fix for Windows Installer starting repeatedly and causing CPU spikes !

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CU2 for SQLServer 2012 SP1 is one key update which you should review and deploy if found necessary. I have found this very much needed for all my SQL2012 SP1 deployments. This CU contains a very important fix(KB2793634).

Note – The choice to deploy CU2 or just the fix (KB2793634) depends on your environment needs.

Here is why you need this fix –

As soon as you deploy SP1 for SQL2012 the Windows Installer (Msiexec.exe) process is repeatedly started to repair certain assemblies. Additionally, the following events are logged in the Application log:

EventId: 1004 Source: MsiInstaller Description: Detection of product ‘{A7037EB2-F953-4B12-B843-195F4D988DA1}’, feature ‘SQL_Tools_Ans’, Component ‘{0CECE655-2A0F-4593-AF4B-EFC31D622982}’ failed. The resource”does not exist.

EventId: 1001 Source: MsiInstaller Description: Detection of product ‘{A7037EB2-F953-4B12-B843-195F4D988DA1}’, feature ‘SQL_Tools_Ans’ failed during request for component ‘{6E985C15-8B6D-413D-B456-4F624D9C11C2}’

Source  – http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2793634

Here are the screenshots of the application log. These are shown as warnings, and could easily be missed.

InstallerIssue2

InstallerIssue1

When this occurs there is a spike in CPU.

This process is repeated every 2 minutes and can cause heavy registry usage issues.

Registry issues can cause multiple failures and a sample one is

InstallerIssue3

Note – Again, this varies from environment to environment.

Conclusion

Deploying the fix or the CU will resolve the issues related to the installer process.

Thanks for reading and keep watching this space for more.

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Check the version of Windows Installer !

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This post is a quick tip to find the version of Windows Installer installed on your box.

You might wonder why I ever need to check this version, so here is my small story –

Today I was installing SQLServer 2008 Upgrade advisor for a Windows Server 2003(SP2) box(Pretty old one) and right away got this error –

CopyIssue3

The error message was pointing that the server might be running an old version of windows installer.

I decided to check what was the basic system requirements to install SQLServer 2008 Upgrade Advisor. Oh btw, that check should have been done earlier, but you know these things happen sometimes ! [With a promise not to repeat it later on].

SQLServer 2008 Upgrade Advisor needs Windows Installer 4.5 to work and that’s clearly mentioned in the download page.

WindowsInstaller1

Now I was curious to see what is the version of windows installer which is currently running.

How do I do that? I haven’t bothered to check that in the past too.

Confusedboy

After doing some random search I finally got a simple answer to my question, thanks to http://stackoverflow.com/.

The best and easiest way to check the version is by typing msiexec in Run prompt to get

WindowsInstaller2

This quickly tells you about the version.

I did little more checks to find that there is yet another way to check the version details and that’s by directly checking the .DLL files.

Note – System files should never be modified, moved or deleted.

WindowsInstaller3

The above picture shows the details of Windows Installer version once it was updated to 4.5 which was the basic requirement for SQLServer 2008 Upgrade Advisor.

I know you are now thinking of Windows Installer 5.0,here is that information for you.

The Windows Installer 5.0 is part of the Windows Server 2012, Windows 8, Windows Server 2008 R2, and Windows 7. There is no redistributable for Windows Installer 5.0.

SQL Server 2012 Upgrade Advisor also needs Windows Installer 4.5.

Conclusion

One error helped me to learn something more about windows installer and if you are interested too,then here are some links for you

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/cc185688(v=vs.85).aspx

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Installer

http://www.advancedinstaller.com/user-guide/msiexec.html

Thanks for reading and watch this space for more.