I visited a few forums and tried everything short of wiping out and reinstalling OS while trying to install SQL Server 2008 Express; uninstalled failed installation everytime, cleaned up registry and install folder, disabled UAC, cleaned up WMI repository, rebooted whenever required etc..
Any solution will be greatly appriciated.
One of the links I followed... http://mark.michaelis.net/Blog/SQLServer2008InstallNightmare.aspx
Looking at the excerpt from ../Logs/Detail.txt file below, not surprisingly Perfmon tool also crashes loading counters. Perfmon tool would work before install and after cleaning up the failed SQL install as well.
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2009-05-07 11:50:01 Slp: PerfCounter calling lodctr: 'c:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL10.SQLEXPRESS\MSSQL\Binn\perf-MSSQL$SQLEXPRESSsqlctr.ini'
2009-05-07 11:50:01 Slp: Prompting user if they want to retry this action due to the following failure:
2009-05-07 11:50:01 Slp: ----------------------------------------
2009-05-07 11:50:01 Slp: The following is an exception stack listing the exceptions in outermost to innermost order
2009-05-07 11:50:01 Slp: Inner exceptions are being indented
2009-05-07 11:50:01 Slp:
2009-05-07 11:50:01 Slp: Exception type: Microsoft.SqlServer.Configuration.Sco.ScoException
2009-05-07 11:50:01 Slp: Message:
2009-05-07 11:50:01 Slp: The system cannot find the file specified.
2009-05-07 11:50:01 Slp:
2009-05-07 11:50:01 Slp: Data:
2009-05-07 11:50:01 Slp: WatsonData = perf-MSSQL$SQLEXPRESS-sqlctr10.0.1600.22.dll@OpenSQLPerformanceData@CollectSQLPerformanceData@CloseSQLPerformanceData
2009-05-07 11:50:01 Slp: DisableRetry = true
2009-05-07 11:50:01 Slp: Inner exception type: System.ComponentModel.Win32Exception
2009-05-07 11:50:01 Slp: Message:
2009-05-07 11:50:01 Slp: The system cannot find the file specified.
2009-05-07 11:50:01 Slp:
2009-05-07 11:50:01 Slp: Stack:
2009-05-07 11:50:01 Slp: at Microsoft.SqlServer.Configuration.Sco.PerformanceCounter.LoadPerformanceCounter(String symbolInstallPath, String counterPrefixServiceName)
2009-05-07 11:50:01 Slp: at Microsoft.SqlServer.Configuration.Sco.PerformanceCounter.RegisterPerformanceCounterCore(String libraryFileName, String openFunction, String collectionFunction, String closeFunction, String symbolInstallPath, String counterPrefixServiceName)
2009-05-07 11:50:01 Slp: at Microsoft.SqlServer.Configuration.Sco.PerformanceCounter.RegisterPerformanceCounter(String libraryFileName, String openFunction, String collectionFunction, String closeFunction, String symbolInstallPath, String counterPrefixServiceName)
2009-05-07 11:50:01 Slp: ----------------------------------------
2009-05-07 12:02:40 Slp: User has chosen to cancel this action
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