A little while back, I ran into an interesting little problem after uninstalling and then reinstalling SQL Server 2012 on the same machine. In order to record a nice, pretty demonstration of installing SQL Server 2012 on a test machine for one of my Pluralsight courses, I decided to completely uninstall SQL Server 2012, and then reinstall it as I recorded it for the demonstration.
After I did that fresh installation, the SQL Agent Service would not start. All the normal troubleshooting measures gave me no immediate resolution. This was what the Windows Application Event Log had to say about it as shown in Figure 1.
Figure 1: Windows Application Event Log Details
This looked like a Windows Registry permission issue. Finally, I figured out that I needed to delete the old SQL Agent error log file (SQLAGENT.OUT), as shown in Figure 2.
![clip_image002[5]](https://www.sqlskills.com/blogs/glenn/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/clip_image0025.jpg "clip_image002[5]")
Figure 2: Windows Application Event Log Details
After I did that, the SQL Agent Service started working just fine. I realize that most people won’t be uninstalling and then reinstalling SQL Server 2012 on the same machine that often, but just in case you do and you run into this issue, this is one thing to try out.
10 thoughts on “SQL Server Agent Does Not Start After Uninstalling/Reinstalling SQL Server 2012”
Hey Glenn
Thanks a mill bud, you saved me hours of troubleshooting, I had the same issue however with SQL 2008R2, I glanced at your post and completely forgot that I did do a reinstall so ive just been reading up on the agent not working and completely forgot about the reinstall..
Thanks again
Glenn, thanks a bunch for saving my time! this worked.
Glad I could help!
Thank you very much. You saved me several hours of troubleshooting.
I just had the same issue with 2014. Did an initial install that failed for an unrelated reason and the service accounts later had to be moved to a different OU in Active Directory. Deleted the file and the Agent started right up. Thanks Glenn!
Thanks a lot, Glenn! It worked like a magic! I had been so frustrated for this problem until I saw your post. You saved my time!
Glad I could help!
Thank You!
Thank you, Glenn! I spent some time to figure out this.
Glad I could help!