There seems to be quite a few people getting an error installing MS SQL 2008 on Windows x64 machines. The error message is
The INSTANCESHAREDWOWDIR command line value is not valid. Please ensure the specified path is valid and different than the INSTANCESHAREDDIR path.
It is a bug with the SQL 2008 installer when installed on windows x64 bit machines. the work around is to specify the path when running the installer by doing it from a command prompt or create a shortcut to the setup.exe on the CD and add the following line next to the setup.exe from the command prompt.
e:\setup.exe /action=install /INSTALLSHAREDDIR=”C:\SQLshared\x64″ /INSTALLSHAREDWOWDIR=”C:\SQLshared\x86″ setup proceeds without issues
Assuming e: is your CD-ROM or where the setup files are located. also here we assume you will be installing it on the C:
If you run into any issues please let us know, this worked for every client we that checked in with us. If it does work for you please still let us know so we know that our tips are useful and we would post more tips as we see them work.
Thank you
ITAhmed
Tags: MS SQL2008
I signed up just to tell you thanks for this. I spent about 5 hours trying to figure this out, and every solution on the internet either failed or was no longer valid. Yours did the trick though. Thanks again for your service to the industry!
We are very glad this solution helped you out. Such feedback encourages us to keep contributing IT solutions to the IT world.
Additionally, if you ever find a soltion that is not easily found on the internet please share it with us. We would love to post it and credit you for it 🙂
Take care
Ahmed
It worked perfectly !! 🙂