Quick Fix : Installation Cancelled : Installing SBS 2011 Essentials Connector

I was working on a Windows XP system last week, and joining it to an SBS Essentials domain, the connector installed with no issues at all.

This was a lab XP machine, more or less freshly installed, so that was kind of the expected result.

I was working on a Migration blog post, so after i had finished the task i was doing with that XP machine, i used System Restore, to roll it back to a state before i had joined it to an Essentials network, then i joined it to an SBS 2003 domain using the trusty old /connectcomputer website.

After the migration had finished, one of the steps to move your computers is to install the connector.

I had already done the same thing for a Windows 7 and Windows Vista client, but i was getting stuck here with the XP machine.

The logs were telling me it was crashing trying to install Update Rollup 1 for SBS Essentials, there were also some errors in the RemoteDesktopClientConfig.log file.

I tried a lot of things to get that install to complete, none worked. In the end after a tiny rant on twitter about this being a Pain In the Ass, i decided to fire off an email to the Development team and see if they could see something i couldn’t. All the logs showed was a generic install error for Update Rollup 1.

Not much help. I was about to try removing UR1 from the Essentials Server, when i had a brain wave.

I wonder if there is something left over from the last time the connector was installed?

Sure enough there was. C:\Windows Server\

Deleting this folder, and re running the installation allowed it to complete.

So, moral of this story, is probably two fold.

First, if you do want to mess about with LAB systems, don’t cut corners and make backups of your VHDs to restore, rather than using System Restore.

Second, if you ever have a problem installing that Connector, before you try to reinstall, make sure that folder is deleted!