You may recall my previous posts on my trouble with SQL 2008 CTP6.  I've made some progress on fixing my machine that I thought I'd share with you.  I now get past the following error:

D:\temp\sqlctp6\servers>setup
The following error occurred:
MsiGetProductInfo failed to retrieve ProductVersion for package with Product Code = '{00E75F61-A126-4CE1-90B8-42295052F1AC}'. Error code: 1605.

I useded the SysInternals (err, Microsoft) Process Monitor Tool and watched for keys found/not found during the failed install.  This found a few keys in HKCR\Installer\UpgradeCodes that were being found early in the setup100.exe process.

(Fair notice - modifying the registry on your computer is your problem, not mine :).

So take the key:
00E75F61

Reverse it.  I think I had 615fe700, but it was late and I was tired.  It might have been 16f57e00.  Anyways, you will see some keys under HKCR\Installer\UpgradeCodes.  There are actually 2-3 places in the registry searched for each key  I've been killing all three of them for each key - there are about 7-10 keys.  The registry section looks like this:

The hex digits you have in the error will correspond to the right hand side of this picture.  The key I've been deleting is it's parent, which is the key being opened in the "key found"/"key not found" stuff in the process monitor log.

Here's what the log looked like for me:

136791  11:53:49.4922341 PM      setup100.exe    2812       CloseFile              D:\temp\sqlctp6\tools\setup\sqlrun_bids.msi                SUCCESS             

136793  11:53:49.4923712 PM      setup100.exe    2812       WriteFile              C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SQL Server\100\Setup Bootstrap\Log\20080313_2353\WOPR_20080313_2353_Detail_ComponentUpdateSetup.txt SUCCESS                Offset: 7,591, Length: 62

136795  11:53:49.4956628 PM      setup100.exe    2812       RegOpenKey                HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Installer\Managed\S-1-5-21-2888934283-224128331-3030229123-1000\Installer\UpgradeCodes\87674BD65E9A5D1409951D671E37BDA4          NAME NOT FOUND         Desired Access: Read

136796  11:53:49.4957796 PM      setup100.exe    2812       RegOpenKey                HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Installer\UpgradeCodes\87674BD65E9A5D1409951D671E37BDA4      NAME NOT FOUND                Desired Access: Read

136797  11:53:49.4958199 PM      setup100.exe    2812       RegOpenKey                HKCR\Installer\UpgradeCodes\87674BD65E9A5D1409951D671E37BDA4 SUCCESS              Desired Access: Read

136798  11:53:49.4958553 PM      setup100.exe    2812       RegEnumValue                HKCR\Installer\UpgradeCodes\87674BD65E9A5D1409951D671E37BDA4 SUCCESS              Index: 0, Name: 16F57E00621A1EC4098B249205251FCA, Type: REG_SZ, Length: 2, Data:

136799  11:53:49.4958960 PM      setup100.exe    2812       RegOpenKey                HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Installer\Managed\S-1-5-21-2888934283-224128331-3030229123-1000\Installer\UpgradeCodes\87674BD65E9A5D1409951D671E37BDA4          NAME NOT FOUND         Desired Access: Read

136800  11:53:49.4959398 PM      setup100.exe    2812       RegOpenKey                HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Installer\UpgradeCodes\87674BD65E9A5D1409951D671E37BDA4      NAME NOT FOUND                Desired Access: Read

136801  11:53:49.4959604 PM      setup100.exe    2812       RegCloseKey                HKCR\Installer\UpgradeCodes\87674BD65E9A5D1409951D671E37BDA4 SUCCESS             

136802  11:53:49.5146648 PM      setup100.exe    2812       RegOpenKey                HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Installer\Managed\S-1-5-21-2888934283-224128331-3030229123-1000\Installer\Products\16F57E00621A1EC4098B249205251FCA        NAME NOT FOUND         Desired Access: Read

Now the installer gets past this and tries to install the engine and then fails, but I will call this progress ;).

Notice - I had deleted all of my physical files for SQL Server from the machine, so killing the registry keys seemed like a reasonable next step.  I can't promise you it's a good idea since I don't have things working yet, but I hope this helps the many of you who mailed me and found me via search engines.

Thanks,

Conor Cunningham