Deployment Solution

Hi, I am trying to install Altiris DS 6.9 SP2 client (trial) on Windows Server 2008 Service Pack 2 Enterprise Edition 64bit (trial) under Vmware workstation 6.5.2 build 156735 (trail). Every time Altiris DS gets up to Installing Deployment Database and Deployment Server (around 30-32%) an error message occurs saying “Setup was unable to run dbinstaller.exe to create the express database—cancelling setup”.

I have searched through previous posts and used google but I don't seem to be able to find a solution for this problem. All the post and knowledge base articles focus on Microsoft SQL Server 2005/Express but I am using Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Enterprise/Express 64bit (trial) and there appears to be some differences between the versions making it hard to use the knowledge based articles to try and trouble shoot the problem.

What I have done is disabled the Windows firewall, restarted MS SQL, checked to make sure the correct port is listed (1433), that Named pipes and TCP/IP are both active and that the user name and password are correct and have permissions.

Any help and guidance would be much appreciated (and yes I do like my trial software :P)

I am a bit confused about which version of SQL 2008 you are using. Is it Enterprise or Express?

I am not quite sure that SQL 2008 Express is supported.

Furthermore, which kind of authentication are you using during setup? As far as I remember you have to use NT Authentication nowadays.

You could try to "manually" create the Database. From kb.altiris.com Article ID: 37527:

1. Run server.exe from the DSSetup folder (do not go through the installer, just execute it so it will extract the files).
2. While server.exe is open, browse to %temp% and look for any apt# folder (where # is a number, usually 0 or 1).
3. Open the apt folder in a command prompt window.
4. To update, run (without quotes) "DBInstaller.exe -E -ud eXpress -i update.ini".
5. To install, run (without quotes) "DBInstaller.exe -E -cd eXpress -i create.ini".

Note: Replace eXpress with the name of the Deployment Server's database name if other than eXpress.

Sorry for any confussion that was caused by the Enterprise/Express, I was trying to say that I have tried both Enterprise and Express and recived the same error.  I am using NT Authentication as well and I will give manually creating the database a shot.

I have set up the same environment you have and discovered SQL 2008 Express will not work.  Altiris wont directly say why but if you revert to SQL Express 2005 you will be able to install.  In case you dont know, when installing Deployment Server your database will be named eXpress by default.  When installing SQL Express 2005 your default instance will be servername\SQLEXPRESS
 
servername\SQLEXPRESS

This instance name will need to be provided in this format during the install when prompted for your database.

One of the most important things I ran into was I needed to have an account assigned to the local admin group AND be actively logged onto server I was installing Deployment Server on with this same account. 

When SQL Express installs it will automatically add the local admin group to the SQL Group "Builtin\Administrators" meaning the windows account you put into the local admin group which should be the same account you are logged onto doing the install will have all the rights to create the database in the SQL 2005 Express engine you have loaded.

It sounds like you are doing everything right but Altiris does not have the correct credentials to connect to the database or it connects to the database but does not have sysadm access to the instance (servername\SQLEXPRESS) so Altiris is not creating the fields it needs at the point you are getting the error.  I dont know your background so dont think I'm insulting your intellegence, when you use SQL Express download the SQL Express Management Studio:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloadS/details.aspx?familyid=C243A5AE-4BD1-4E3D-94B8-5A0F62BF7796&displaylang=en

Logon as the account you created to install Altiris and see if you can open this utility.  If yes then your account is working correctly and you may have not specified the database correctly during install.  As a safety net, open the management studio and expand Servername\SQLExpress -> Security -> Server Roles -> Right-Click sysadm

Verify Builtin\Administrators is in the group and verify the account you are currently logged is as is in the local admin group.  As for security, this account is ONLY needed during the initial install and is required to remain on the system but you can secure it with things like disabling interactive logon and so on BUT the account has to remain in the local admin group and has to remain on the system.

Hope this helps.

I have managed to successfully install Altiris DS by going back to MS SQL Enterprise and enabling TCP/IP and Named pipes (the Express version of MS SQL lacked the option to enable these two options).  Thanks for the help.