InstallAware

My product has been installing SQL Express with InstallAware for about 5 years now. Today I saw an error that I've never seen before. I've recently switched from IA15 to X2, and a custom SQL Server 2014 Express runtime to the one included with X2.

SQL Server installation media on a network share or in a custom folder can cause installation failure if the total length of the path exceeds 260 characters. To correct this issue, utilize Net Use functionality or shorten the path name to the SQL Server setup.exe file.

It seems the temp path being created for the setup is too long.

The PC in question looks to be Windows 7 x86

Dear rev23dev,

thanks for reporting it ... but I really don't know if we can include a similar fix, which it appears to be caused by a limitation of the MS SQL installer itself.

Anyway, thanks once again for reporting it!

Regards

Hello,

we are hitting the same problem. We delivered SQL Server Express 2008 R2 for several years now.
Now we switched to InstallAware X3 and decided to deliver SQL Server Express 2014 instead of the 2008R2.
On two mashines we got the same error when installing the SQL Server (Windows 8.1 and 10 (both x64)).
It seams like it doesnt matter if we run it from network path or from desktop.
How may we shorten the path used here or can do something else to provide getting this error?

Thanks in advance,
Martin

Dear Martin,

I have just completed to run some tests and I don't see any problem with installing the "SQL Server Express 2014 RTMs" on Win 8.1 / 10 (both x64).

Regards

Hmm,
"runs on my mashine" was not what i expected to hear...
We have the Problem on two of our testing virtual mashines now and we are afraid that many users out there will get the error too.
So again my question: How can we get rid of this?

Greetings,
Martin

Dear Martin,

I should first understand what really happens, otherwise it's difficult to suggest you a workaround or a possible solution.

Can you give me some more details about the Virtual Systems you used to replicate the issue?

Regards

Hi Francesco,

we have the error now on 3 VMs. We host them via Microsoft Hyper-V:

Windows 8 Pro:
- Intel(R)Core(TM) i7 CPU 960 @3.20GHz 3.20GHz (virtual quadcore)
- 3 GB RAM
- x64 processor
- 50GB HDD

Windows 8.1 Pro:
- Intel(R)Core(TM) i7 CPU 960 @3.20GHz 3.20GHz (virtual quadcore)
- 3 GB RAM
- x64 processor
- 50GB HDD

Windows 10 Enterprise:
- Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5-2640 v2 @ 2.00GHz 2.00GHz
- 3 GB RAM
- x64 processor
- 50GB HDD

If you want to know more about the Host-System we use I will have to ask our Administrator to give me the information.
Is there something more you need to know?

Dear Martin,

can you contact me at; support@installaware.com?

Regards

Thanks for the help Francesco.
There was something wrong with my commandline parameters, it had nothing to do with InstallAware

*closed*

Hmm... ran into this again today with X6

It's telling me SQL Server installation media on a network share or in a custom folder can cause installation failure if the total length of the path exceeds 260 characters. To correct this issue, utilize Net Use functionality or shorten the path name to the SQL Server setup.exe file

The path it went to was:
C:\Users\Counter\AppData\Local\{1B8A640C-2546-4DFD-A192-1FEFC6825891}\Microsoft SQL Server Express 2014 SP2 (x64)\mFileBagIDE.dll\DD914CEC\x64\setup
Not 260 (I guess some of the files it extracts might be?). Kind of goes back to what I was saying in a previous post about these web media names being excessively long

How is no one else running into this? I just saw it again today on Windows 10

Dear Rev23dev,

honestly, I don't see any problem when installing "SQL Server Express 2014 SP2 (x64)" RTMs on Win 10 x64.

Regards

If you sign in with a Windows account your user profile directory is limited to 5 characters. So C:\users\xxxxx\AppData... so maybe this one, since it's a local account with a longer user name is causing the issues?

I think these paths and .7zip filenames should be shortened though.

For example, if I set my webmediablock url to use sql2014sp2x64.zip, IA should use this filename when generating that .7zip file (currently it uses the full name of the web media block), additionally, that would shorten this temp path.

Dear Rev23dev,

for test purpose, you may try to copy the extracted SQL setup files to a different directory and then to run the <sql-setup> from there.

For example, in the "setupsql2014sp2_x64" script the variable "MSSQL2014_FILEBAG_X64" holds the path the extracted SQL setup files. You may modify this script and you could use the "Copy/Move Local Files" command to copy these files on a different directory (eg. c:\test) of the target machine target. Finally, you should also update accordingly the path used to run the <sql-setup> ("Run Program" Command).

The "Copy/Move Local Files" is a Windows Installer command (PURPLE COMMAND) and to execute it immediately, you need to temporarily switch native engine ON.

Set Variable NATIVE_ENGINE to TRUE
Copy Local Files \ to
Set Variable NATIVE_ENGINE to FALSE

Regards