Error Installing SQL Server 2017

A quick blog post on an error I got when installing SQL Server 2017 RTM. I ran the set-up for the usual features (database engine, SSAS, SSIS, SSRS and MDS), but the installation failed for the database engine and SSIS. During the set-up, I received two pop-ups notifying that something was wrong. A quick look into the set-up log revealed it was the Microsoft Visual C++ 2015 Redistributable feature that was causing the trouble:

Looking at the specific log, the following error was shown:

Error 0x80070666: Cannot install a product when a newer version is installed.

Indeed, there was a newer version installed: the 2017 package. I had already installed the latest version of SSMS (17.3) and SSDT for Visual Studio 2017 and one of those had probably already installed the 2017 redistributable. The official documentation states that installation of the 2015 (or later) will fail if a newer version is already installed. However, it also says it’s easy to discover if a newer version has already been installed (using the registry). So the SQL Server 2017 set-up should have been able to work around this issue. But it didn’t. So how do we solve this?

1. Uninstall the 2017 redistributable.
2. Install the 2015 redistributable.
3. Re-install the 2017 redistributable.
4. Install SQL Server 2017.

Installation still gave me a pop-up something was wrong; the set-up probably still found that there was a newer version installed (either the 2017 one, or a more recent version of the 2015 one), but now it continued with the set-up. You can probably avoid this by installing SQL Server 2017 first (which will install the 2015 redistributable) and then re-install the 2017 redistributable.

The weird thing is, when I checked the installed programs in the control panel, the 2015 redistributable isn’t listed anymore.

Anyhow, it works. There’s also a Connect item for this bug (which is already around since RC2), so if you would upvote it, that would be nice.

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