Recently I have been installing a new SQL Server 2008 instance on Vmware vSphere based  virtual server, the OS was Windows 2008 R2. I have done this several times before and I don't recall ever getting this issue. Seeing as it took me a short while to figure out what was going on I decided to make some notes about it here.

I attached the SQL Server 2008 iso to the VM, auto-run failed to kick in so off I went to the CD/DVD drive to start the setup manually. First up, it warned me that I needed to update Windows installer and the .Net framework to 3.5. I clicked OK to do this and it ran successfully and then the server prompted me to reboot.

When the server had restarted I ran the setup again but this time nothing happened, no error, no start screen, nothing. I did this a few times again, I rebooted again, not sure why I rebooted, more out of habit than necessity and just to make sure.

I tried setup again, same thing.

Off I went to the event viewer and I found an Error in the log that  looked something like this:

"The Windows update  could not be installed because of an error: 2149842974 "" (Command line: ""C:\Windows\system32\wusa.exe" "D:\x64\redist\Windows Installer\x64\INSTMSI45.MSU" /norestart")"

A quick google search did not return anything obvious to my situation. I even posted a question on a couple of forums.

Anyway I decided to try and get a more meaningful error and I ran the above command from a command prompt. I did in fact get a new error that said there was not enough space available on the drive, or something similar. This was a strange error because the only drive without space available was the d:\ drive...The CD/DVD drive.

Anyway I copied the contents of the DVD drive, the SQL Server 2008 setup files to a local drive on the server, with plenty of space. I then ran the setup again using the files on the local drive. This time I got the setup screen and was able to perform my installation.