Wednesday 30 September 2009

[Fix] SQL Server 2008 Install causes Access Denied error

Got a new database server at work. It was preinstalled with Win 2008.

So I went about installing SQL Server 2008 on it. All looked to be installing correctly until I got the error near the end of the installation that said 'Access Denied' when finishing the install. After ending the installation it looked like most of the programs were installed. The SQL Server service was also running. However I couldn't connect to the new instance.

Tried to reinstall SQL Server 2008 but it gave the same 'Access Denied' error. I thought it was a permissions issue somewhere so I tried to give the service account and the installing account admin rights to the server. It still was giving the same error.

Finally found a knowledge base article that said that the installing account had to have Debug Programs permissions in Group Policy by doing the following steps

  1. Log on to the computer as a user who has administrative credentials.
  2. Click Start, click Run, type Control admintools , and then click OK.
  3. Double-click Local Security Policy.
  4. In the Local Security Settings dialog box, click Local Policies, double-click User Rights Assignment, and then double-click Backup Files and Directories.
  5. In the Debug programs Properties dialog box, click Add User or Group.
  6. In the Select User or Groups dialog box, type the user account being used for setup, and then click OK two times.

This looked like it would do the trick however when I navigated to the setting the add user group buttons were greyed out so I couldn't add the current user.

After a bit more thinking I thought that the setting must be in our network group policy somewhere. I set the Debug Programs permissions for the server OU but it still didn't change the setting on the new server. Finally I realised that the new server hadn't been moved to the correct OU. After moving it into the correct OU all the settings came through and the installation completed successfully

Hope this helps someone.

Please share your SQL Server 2008 Tips in the comments

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