I was attempting to uninstall the SQL Server 2008 R2 Nov CTP and I found the SQL server 2008 R2 (x64 in my case) uninstaller and everything appeared to go to plan, but….
When it had finished uninstalling the Icon still appeared in my list of things to uninstall. So I attempted to uninstall again and chose everything that was there and uninstalled that. Again it told me success but the icon remained.
So next I thought I will just uninstall all the other 2008 R2 items in the list, starting with something like native client, and it told me:
Warning 26002: The following products on SQL Server 2008 Native Client
– SQL Server 2008 R2 Database Engine Shared
– SQL Server 2008 R2 Common Files
I understand dependencies, so I thought fine, I will just uninstall in reverse order of precedence until I could succesfully uninstall everything. The stupid thing was I could not find these items in the list of software installed on my computer.
Firstly note the name, is not Microsoft SQL Server … so check down your list of items to see if it is not just listed at the bottom of the page in the “S” section not in “M” where all the other Microsoft SQL Server entries are.. (grrrr <– angry @ microsoft sound).
So if you still cant find it do this, go to this registry key
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionUninstall
Assume I was looking to unintall the "SQL Server 2008 R2 Database Engine Shared",
- Search for SQL Server 2008 keys in the uninstall registry.
- Keep searching until you find the Database engine shared install location
- Note the “Install source”, copy the path and access that path via Start :: Run
- Luckily I still had the install media on my machine, (it was in my downloads directory), and opening the path showed a directory with the .msi file. If you are not as lucky as me you will need to find the installation media and go to this relative path location
- Right click on the msi and choose uninstall
This threw a little error,which I ignored and it then proceeded to successfully uninstall the item
Repeat this process until you have successfully uninstalled all the items, that it is complaining about and then go back and start uninstalling from the uninstall UI those other SQL Server 2008 R2 files.
Cheers
thanks for ur tutorial 🙂
You saved my day. Thanks a lot.
Thanks for the help. Why does MS make their software such a pain in the ass to uninstall?
Yes Yes Yes…thanks for this. Also saved my day.
I originally installed 2008 and 2008 R2 via iso files, which I didn’t have access to anymore, so in your instructions I could not use install source path. I used localsource or localpath which was somewhere in the windows folder. I ran “uninstall” from the relevant msi files and 2008 R2 setup removal from “Add/Remove programs” WORKED and I was then able to re-install 2008 successfully.
Great post! exactly my problem. I was able to remove everything SQL 2008 now.
Thanks!
This solved my problem! I was spending hours at this until I read this post. Thank you!
Thanks, all that i needed
=)