The installation package cannot be installed by the installer service

SQL Server 2008 RTM is released now. Today I used my Windows Server 2008 PC to download SQL Server 2008 Books Online (SQLServer2008_BOL.msi). I tried to install it, but it had the following message.

The installation package cannot be installed by the installer service. You must install a windows service pack that contains a newer version of the windows installer service.

This message showed that I didn’t have Windows Installer. After I installed Windows Installer 4.5 Redistributable (Windows6.0-KB942288-v2-x86.msu), everything was fine.

How to upgrade to SQL Server 2008 RC0?

If you have SQL Server 2000, SQL Server 2005 or SQL Server 2008 Feb CTP on your PC and then if you want to upgrade to SQL Server 2008 RC0, on the UI side, you only can see the link which can let you upgrade from SQL Server 2000 or 2005 to SQL Server 2008 RC0.

How do you upgrade from SQL Server Feb CTP to SQL Server 2008? I would like to say that you can click the above link to try if the upgrade is working. I believe this link also supports Build-to-Build upgrade.

If you don’t want to use UI to do the upgrade, you can also use the command line to do the upgrade as follows:

setup.exe /ACTION=Upgrade /INSTANCENAME=yourInstancename

After entering the command line, you will know how to upgrade to SQL Server 2008 RC0.

Microsoft Office Communicator 2007 doesn’t support Windows Server 2008

Today when I wanted to install Microsoft Office Communicator 2007 on my PC with Windows Server 2008, I found the install had no UI. The black console showed up quickly and then disappeared.

The UI showed the error messages with the incomplete install and the complete install , which made me feel confused. Did it mean that the install is incomplete or complete? Actually there was no real install.

Finally I found that Microsoft Office Communicator 2007 only supports the operating systems: Windows 2000 SP4, Windows XP SP2, Windows Vista. Therefore , I can't use Microsoft Office Communicator 2007 on Windows Server 2008.

Will it change in the future?

Can’t you install SQL Server 2005 tools after you install VSTS 2008?

If you install VSTS 2008 first successfully on your PC and then if you install SQL Server 2005 with default instance later, you might get the dialogue box saying that you can’t install SQL Server 2005 Tools (Workstation Components, Books Online and Development Tools) . If you try to install SQL Server 2005 tools with named instance, it is not working either. You may feel disappointed.

That’s because when you install VSTS 2008, you also install SQL Express automatically, which blocks you to install SQL Server 2005 tools.

Don’t worry. You can just do the following steps:

1. Go to Add/Remove Programs

2. Choose Microsoft SQL Server 2005.

3. Uninstall Workstation Components, Books Online and Development Tools.

4. Install SQL Server 2005 Tools again.

You will fix the problem.

Use CCleaner to remove the software you can’t uninstall in Add/Remove Programs

Today I wanted to uninstall some software like Muddly (Browser) and CA eTrust in my Add/Remove Programs (ARP) . But I couldn’t find change/remove button to uninstall them. I tried to use some online uninstall software to remove them, but they were not helpful. Finally, I found CCleaner helped me uninstall them successfully.

If you uninstalled some software before , but you can still see them in ARP, you can try CCleaner this time.

After you download CCleaner, you can launch it, go to Tools and click Run Installer. You will find it is so powerful to remove the programs so easily.

Article:
Use CCleaner and Uninstall Tool in your PC every day

CanoScan error: Make sure that there is enough space on the target disk

I have used my scanner, CanoScan LiDE 70, to scan documents without any problem since 2006. Today when I used it, I got the following error message :

Unable to scan: Make sure that there is enough space on the target disk.

This error message was not helpful because my target disk still had so much space. When I changed the default setting to another disk, it still showed the error. When I rebooted my PC, I still got this error too.

When I was surfing some forums, I could not get the correct answer. The best way for me in my mind was to uninstall CanoScan LiDE 70 driver and install it again to see what’s going on.

After the uninstall and install CanoScan LiDE 70 driver, there is no error message. It is working for me.

If you get this error message next time, just uninstall it and install it again. It might work for you.

SQL Server 2008 RC0 BIDS and SQL Server 2005 BIDS can do the side by side install

This Feb, I wrote an article (Installing SQL Server 2008 BIDS (CTP6)) about SQL Server 2008 BIDS (CTP6) and got the important result as follows:

Either SQL Server 2008 BIDS or SQL server 2005 BIDS is allowed when you do the side by side install of SQL Server 2008 and SQL server 2005.

Some days ago, I installed SQL Server 2008 RC0 on my Windows XP machine with SQL Server 2005 (full install) and VSTS 2008 .

I find SQL Server 2008 RC0 BIDS and SQL Server 2005 BIDS can do the side by side install. The result is very different from the one in SQL Server 2008 CTP6.

Per msdn, SQL Server Management tools include the following components:

SQL Server Management Studio

SQL Server Profiler

SQL Server Database Tuning Advisor

Command prompt tools, such as sqlcmd.exe and osql.exe.

Business Intelligence Development Studio add-ins to Microsoft Visual Studio

Note that Business Intelligence Development Studio is a separate option during SQL Server installation.

Regardless of how many instances of SQL Server, Analysis Services, or Reporting Services are installed on a computer, only one copy of SQL Server 2008 Management Tools will be installed.

SQL Server 2008 Management Tools can run side-by-side on the same computer with earlier versions of SQL Server Management Tools.

SQL Server 2008 BIDS is really an interesting issue and I don’t know if it will be changed in the version of SQL Server 2008 RTM.

VS 2008 Shell, Visual Studio Tools for Applications and SQL Native Client are Redists

I tried the simple scenario on my VM Win2k3 as follows:

1. Install SQL Server 2008 RC0 (full install)

2. Uninstall SQL Server 2008 RC0 (full uninstall)

After the full uninstall of RC0, I can still see VS 2008 Shell, Visual Studio Tools for Applications and SQL Native Client on Add/Remove Programs. Those components are Redists. Therefore, after the uninstall, other software still need them.

It is so interesting to know this scenario.

SQL Server 2005 can’t be upgraded to SQL Server 2008 RC0 at this moment

When you have SQL server 2005 Enterprise in your PC, and you want to upgrade to SQL Server 2008 RC0, you will find the upgrade fails. That’s because the current SKU of SQL Server 2008 RC0 is Enterprise Evaluation, not Enterprise.

It is impossible for you to upgrade from SQL server 2005 Enterprise to SQL Server 2008 RC0 Enterprise Evaluation. We need to wait until SQL Server 2008 RTM Enterprise is released.

The only thing you can do is install previous SQL Server 2008 CTP first and then upgrade it to SQL Server 2008 RC0. The upgrade will pass.

Need to install VSTS 2008 SP1 if your web test and proxy setting fails in VSTS 2008

I posted the issue in the following forum.
http://forums.microsoft.com/MSDN/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=3486137&SiteID=1

I try to create a web test using proxy, and the following codes are working in VSTS 2005, but it is not working in VSTS 2008. I got the following error:

Request failed: No connection could be made because the target machine actively refused it IP Address:80

During 1 day search and I find one clean machine to repro, I find the problem .

VSTS 2008 RTM has the bug related to webtest and proxy. That's why it failed in VSTS 2008 RTM , but passed in VSTS 2005.

Because VSTS 2008 SP1 Beta is still in beta version, usually people don't install it. If they don't install it, it means this web test and proxy will not work forever.

After I installed it and ran the test again, the web test passed.

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Text;
using System.Net;
using Microsoft.VisualStudio.TestTools.WebTesting;

public class WebTest3Coded : WebTest
{
public WebTest3Coded()
{
this.PreAuthenticate = false;
NetworkCredential credential;
credential = (NetworkCredential)CredentialCache.DefaultCredentials;
WebProxy proxy = new WebProxy("198.152.203.10", 80);
proxy.Credentials = credential;
this.WebProxy = proxy;
}
public override IEnumerator GetRequestEnumerator()
{
WebTestRequest request1 = new WebTestRequest("http://www.microsoft.com/");
yield return request1;
}
}