Symptoms

The task Install additional packages on node 'WPE01' according role WPE fails with the error as below:

MSI (s) (10!28) [17:35:08:849]: Product: Windows Provisioning Engine -- PA Windows Provisioning Engine installer Error: Unable to connect SQL server via the 'Data Source=.\MSSQLSERVER;Initial Catalog=;Integrated Security=True;User ID=;Password=' connection string, Error: A network-related or instance-specific error occurred while establishing a connection to SQL Server. The server was not found or was not accessible. Verify that the instance name is correct and that SQL Server is configured to allow remote connections. (provider: SQL Network Interfaces, error: 25 - Connection string is not valid)

Cause

In general, this error means that WPE installer cannot establish local connection to the corresponding MS SQL server instance. There are two possible causes:

  1. TCP/IP is not enabled for MS SQL server
  2. The connection string contains server name that could not be resolved and used to connect to the server

Resolution

  1. Run Sql Server Configuration Manager
  2. Go to SQL Server Network Configuration and enable TCP/IP

  3. Find corresponding server name in the connection string, right after Data Source=. The possible combinations are:

    • <server IP>
    • <server hostname>
    • <server IP>\<instance name>
    • <server hostname>\<instance name>
    • .\<instance name>

    In this example, it is .\MSSQLSERVER

  4. Go to SQL Native Client 10.0 Configuration > Aliases

  5. Create new alias with the following parameters:

    5.1 Alias name: .\MSSQLSERVER

    5.2 Port no: 1433

    5.3 Protocol: TCP/IP

    5.4 Server: 127.0.0.1

  6. Run failed task.

Note: The aliases should be created for both 32 and 64 bit SQL Native Clients, otherwise the task will fail with inability to create the WPE database.

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