MS is blazing the trail…

…on new innovative ways to make an install fail.

After upgrading my SQL server to 2005 SP2, I went to download the update for the Books On Line using the recommended link from the SP2 installer. Downloaded the msi to my desktop, double-clicked it and ran it. Then, after a while, got this message: “A network error occurred while attempting to read from the file:….”

Network error dialog
Network error dialog

“Network error”? Which “network”? The one between the screen and the desktop? Searched the web, found nothing. Started thinking deep. Read that message again and again and started noticing something weird about the filename. The file in the error message is called SqlServer2K5_BOL_Sep2007[1].msi, while the file on disk is called SqlServer2K5_BOL_Sep2005.msi, no “[1]” in there. So I renamed the file accordingly:

And lo and behold, the installer ran fine now! At a certain point while cleaning up temp files, it sits there spinning like forever, but that’s ok, normal MS behaviour, so don’t panic, it gets its knickers untwisted in due time:

The point of seemingly eternal wait
The point of seemingly eternal wait

One thought on “MS is blazing the trail…”

  1. Thank you for the real world example to back up my conclusion that Mickeysoft should be spending serious development time making the system (and especially its error messages) coherent, instead of tacking on more pointless decorative jargon.
    -KiM

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