Fix: Managed SQL Server installer has stopped working on Windows 7 | 8

Managed SQL Server installer has stopped working

In this article we’ll discuss how to resolve Managed SQL Server installer has stopped working when trying to install SQL Server 2008 R2/SQL Server 012 .

So the scenario is, when you click on “New SQL Server stand-alone installation or added features to an existing installation”, it will seems like it will load and then you get an error “Managed SQL Server installer has stopped working”.

When we first got this error message I took a lot of hours to figure it out. My first though was it was a corrupted download, so I went and re-download the version from Microsoft website and checked the MD5 checksum value to make sure it’s a proper download. It’s a good idea to check the value if you downloading and installing a large installation file. 

My next thought was the computer was connected to Domain network. So I logged in as local admin. Trust me when it comes to SQL installation it’s best to always install it under Local administrator’s account, rather than install it under Domain administrator because even though you are the domain administrator you still might have some security restrictions. For a clear understanding it’s best to refer to this TechNet article.

Anyway, back to the topic – well that didn’t really help in this case. Later I noticed some errors in Event log pointing to .NET Frameworks. Now I got a clue and I knew how to proceed. I needed to reinstall .NET frameworks in order to resolve this. But it’s built-in to Windows 7. So I needed to disable and enable again. I did so as follows:

Go to Control Panel. Open Programs and Features option. Select the Turn Windows Features On or Off function

Find Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5.1 option and uncheck it and reboot

Now run a SFC /SCANNOW so that we can make sure if there is any corruption, it will get fixed.

Then go back and enable all options within the Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5.1 option

Now reboot once again. It might take longer to reboot.

Now I tried to install again and this time it bypassed the error and got installed successfully.

Now an additional tip, In case if you are installing SQL 2008 R2 on Windows 7 and you have .NET Framework 4.0 or 4.5 installed, it’s best to uninstall it completely, until you finish the SQL installation if you are getting this error.

I hope this article help you resolve this problem.