I am trying to install SQL Server 2008 Dev ed. on the Windows 7 64 bit OS.
The first time I received the 'Wait on the Database Engine recovery handle
failed. Check the SQL Server error log for potential causes.' error message
but could find no cause.

I found several discussions about slipstreaming with SP1 so I uninstalled
SQL Server, created a slipstream package and tried again. This time I
received a 'error occurred during encryption' message.
I found a couple of discussions about it but none that work.

I am running VS 2008 on the laptop but did not install SQL Express because I
am planning on using SQL Dev.

Can anyone offer some suggestions?

Thank you kindly,
-bert

bert (bert (AT) discussions (DOT) microsoft.com) writes:
Do you have any install media for some other OS? Build a virtual machine
with Vista, or maybe even better XP, and try the install. If it still
fails, I would suspect bad media. If it succeeds on the earlier OS, I
don't really have any suggestions, as I have not played with Win7 myself.


--
Erland Sommarskog, SQL Server MVP, esquel (AT) sommarskog (DOT) se

Links for SQL Server Books Online:
SQL 2008: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/sqlserver/cc514207.aspx
SQL 2005: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/sqlserver/bb895970.aspx
SQL 2000: http://www.microsoft.com/sql/prodinf...ons/books.mspx

Hi Erland:

Thank you I can try that. I saw several discussions about the issue
installing on Win7 but the suggestion to 'slipstream' it did not work. I will
give it a try on Windows XP 32 bit and see how it goes.

Thank you,
-bert

"Erland Sommarskog" wrote:

Hello Bert,

We had the same issue here, and we figured out taht the problem was the
Services Account setting on the Server Configuration step of instalation. We
solved the problem setting the accounts as SYSTEM or NETWORK SERVICES.

Hope this help.

"bert" wrote:

I don't know if it still applies to Windows 7, but the Microsoft
Support Article at http://support.microsoft.com/kb/920114 solved the
problem for me.

In addition to the summary message "wait on the Database Engine
recovery handle failed" I had the error message 15209 "an error
occurred during encryption" in the SQL Server error log.

Sure enough, my problem was that the NETWORK SERVICE account lacked
permission to its own settings folder "C:\Documents and Settings
\NetworkService\".