Santosh Benjamin

Foiled by the BizTalk Beast

So here I was feeling all chuffed about doing a training session for BTS 2004 and fired up the Setup to prepare a demo and what happens ? A complete nightmare!!

I swear I have never had so much trouble installing any piece of software in my life, and it still hasnt been done successfully. Make no mistake, its a piece of $#%^&*. Never thought I'd get to a stage where I'd have to abuse software. I even missed a Velvet Revolver show and its been one of my dreams to see Slash play having been a big Guns N Roses fan. I will never forgive MS for this.

So what are the problems ?

Well, firstly, I will admit to one mistake. Last night I forgot that I didnt have Analysis Services SP3a installed (although I had previously updated SQL with SP3a). That started off all the problems. I had to apply the pack, delete all the BTS databases and cubes and run the config again.

Then the SSO failed. The bloody thing installs a service in a Disabled mode and then has the cheek to complain that the service cannot be started because it is disabled. Hows that for irony ? So i force a start of the service, but the config wizard wont play ball. It rolls back the entire thing.

I had to delete all the databases and start again. This time I had to put the BizTalkUser that I created into the Admin group and then it went past the SSO stage.

Just when I was starting to heave a sigh of relief, it crashed and proudly asked me if I wanted to send the message to MS. Of course I did. Not that it will help, but never mind.

The next day (this morning) my colleage told me that I had to log in as Local Admin. Previously I had logged in as my domain user which has ALL admin privileges on the box.

But still no luck. This time it threw some weird rules engine config problem. Guess what the solution is to that ? (I found it on the net). You have to go and delete some registry settings which the config wizard doesnt remove when it rolls back. Why in heavens name do i have to do this kind of rubbish in a GA release of a major product? Dunno. Someone in their infinite wisdom put this feature in. It gets worse. Someone in a forum suggested we change something in the HOSTS file. You have got to be kidding me. I expect to tweak system files in a Unix environment. NOT when I'm given a fancy pants GUI setup wizard.Not that it solves the problem anyway.

But I'm being brave. I removed the entries and this time SSO failed YET AGAIN.

Went through the whole rigmarole several times,. Uninstalled and reinstalled BTS 3 or 4 times, BUT IT STILL CRASHES WITHOUT EXPLAINING ANYTHING.

Now I've finally given up. Im installing XP SP2 (and I know thats going to worsen the problem because I then have to install some hotfixes and rollups for BTS to work- as though I didnt have enough to worry about).

I havent the foggiest idea what to do anymore. I am supposed to be the BTS evangelist in my company but I cannot evangelise a product that i cannot even install.

My last try will be when SP2 gets installed. I'm going to try and uncheck the SSO options and see if I can install it that way. Beyond that I might have to install Windows Server 2003 on my laptop, but that might mess with my domain connectivity.

Make no mistake. BTS installs are not for the faint of heart. I've seen at least 2 dozen messages on various forums where people have suffered the same fate. I'm going to have a serious discussion with our MS Account Manager and the support team here in London. This is getting a bit too much to handle.