Blog Archives
SQL Features Discovery Report
While going through my preparation for the MCSA exam I stumbled upon this gem that I always seem to forget about so I thought I would pass it along to you. For a quick an easy way to determine what is installed on an instance of SQL Server, run the SQL Server Installation Center and select tools. Then select Installed SQL Server features discovery report, as shown in Figure 1. This will produce a nice report as shown in Figure 2.
Enjoy!
Figure 1 – SQL Server Installation Center
Figure 2 – Setup Discovery Report
MAP Toolkit Licensing Continued
Continuing yesterday’s post regarding the licensing issues I discovered using the MAP Toolkit, I was able to resolve the issue without much difficulty. The license was showing in the MAP Toolkit as developer edition. We have volume licensing so I am sure now that wrong installer was selected at the time of install because we do not use keys as they are populated by the installer.
To correct the problem, we ran the installer on the server effected and selected ‘Edition Upgrade’ and selected the media. When prompted for a product key, we had to fool the installer with some trickeration. On a separate VM, we installed SQL Server using our Enterprise media which generated a key code in the box at the same point in the installation. We then typed that key into our real installation and proceeded with the ‘Edition Update’ thus allowing the installer to realize that we were licensed for a different version. This successfully updated our edition to Enterprise as this was the license purchased for this server.
However, after stopping and restarting SQL Server to get the new version to register we noticed that the SQL Agent was failing with no errors noted in the SQL error log or the Agent log. We ran the ‘Repair’ from the installation center (shown in figure 1) to make sure that there was no corruption with the previous edition. That did not resolve the problem. When running the agent from the command line we got a different error that pointed us to the login being incorrect. Somehow running the Edition Update locked out the AD account which is used only by this service on this server so a user could not have been to blame (or should not be able to). Once unlocking that account, SQL Server Enterprise Edition was running smoothly! Enjoy!
Figure 1 – Edition Upgrade
Licensing Issues with the MAP Toolkit
Today, I ran the MAP toolkit (Microsoft Assessment and Planning) to identify our licensing structure and found an unwelcome surprise. The four new cluster nodes I installed earlier this year showed up as developer edition and not enterprise edition. Our administrator who handles the license keys, contracts, and downloads from MS gave me the license key and the ISO. When I pointed it out today, she said there was no key for an enterprise installation. That means she gave me the wrong ISO and/or she did not know it did not require a key back ten months ago. The point of this blog is not to assess blame. But to point out a pitfall in your installation through my lesson learned.
Now the real question is how do I fix it? A friend told me that I could change a registry key, but some others have indicated that I need to do an in-place upgrade. I will keep you posted. Enjoy!
My Attempt To Install SSMS on Citrix….Pass (Part Two)
Yesterday I told you about my failed attempt to install SSMS for SQL Server 2008 R2 as a Citrix application and the failure that ensued. My apologies for making you wait a day for the solution, but I was rushed with another production issue yesterday and decided to break this into two posts for dramatic effect.
Drumroll please!
I found the following solution on several websites including Microsoft:
You need to change the following registry key locations:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\DevDiv\VC\Servicing\9.0
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\DevDiv\VC\Servicing\9.0\RED\1033
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\DevDiv\VS\Servicing\9.0
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\DevDiv\VS\Servicing\9.0\VSR\1033
Change the values of SP and SPIndex to 1 and SPName to SP1. The original values in my case were 0 and RTM, respectively. This is a strange issue because Visual Studio 2008 was never installed on this machine.
I hope this helps! Enjoy!
My Attempt To Install SSMS on Citrix….Fail
I had a goal in mind: install SSMS on Citrix so that if I had to look at one of my SQL servers, I would not need to remote desktop into my desktop or the server itself, in case I needed to look at multiple servers. I wanted just to set up SSMS on the Citrix server as an application so that I could quickly assess problems and avoid redecorating my three monitors when the icons get squished down into one RDP session.
I downloaded the 2008 R2 SSMS installer from Microsoft instead of using my media. After running the installer, I get the following error:
SSMS Install Error
SQL Swampland 