Incidentally, the sort of problem I’m discussing here is why I (almost) always copy the patch/servicepack/media to somewhere local – each time you run a servicepack or cumulative update, the whole package decompresses to your hard drive, runs, and then deletes itself afterwards – not something that you want to wait for several times…
Patching some SQL Servers today, I had a couple of failures because there was a reboot pending (presumably a hangover from the Windows patching that had gone before).
Reboot the server, restart the installation, and get the message again. Swear. Remember there’s a registry key value you can rename to bypass these checks. (It’s “HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\PendingFileRenameOperations” – rename it to, say, PendingFileRenameOperationsBackup and have another go. Remember to change it back when you’re done.)
Except in this case, there was nothing there… The key value didn’t exist. Or if it did, I couldn’t see it, which is a bit awkward as I’m supposed to be administering these servers. muttermutter Anyway.
If you’re running a normal SQL Server setup, you can do a lot from the command line – and this is all documented elsewhere, and I’m not going to rehash it.
However, as mentioned at the top (you did read the small print, yes?), the typical service pack / cumulative update / hotfix is distributed as a self-extracting executable, called something like SQLServer2014-KB4032541-x64.exe that launches something else.
Fortunately, if you run your executable with the /? parameter, you’ll get a helpful list of what parameters you can pass into the service pack:
C:\<<somepath>>\ >SQLServer2014-KB4032541-x64.exe /?
Microsoft (R) SQL Server 2014 12.00.5000.00
Copyright (c) Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
Usage:
setup.exe /[option]={value} /[option]={value} ...
Options:
ACTION Specifies a Setup work flow, like INSTALL,
UNINSTALL, or UPGRADE. This is a required
parameter.
ALLINSTANCES Specifies that all instances are to be included
in the Setup operation. This parameter is
supported only when applying a patch.
CLUSTERPASSIVE Specifies that SQL Server Setup should not manage
the SQL Server services. This option should be
used only in a non-Microsoft cluster environment.
ENU Use the /ENU parameter to install the English
version of SQL Server on your localized Windows
operating system.
ERRORREPORTING Specify if errors can be reported to Microsoft to
improve future SQL Server releases. Specify 1 or
True to enable and 0 or False to disable this
feature.
HELP Displays the command line parameters usage
IACCEPTSQLSERVERLICENSETERMS By specifying this parameter and accepting the
SQL Server license terms, you acknowledge that
you have read and understood the terms of use.
INDICATEPROGRESS Specifies that the detailed Setup log should be
piped to the console.
INSTANCEID Specify the Instance ID for the SQL Server
features you have specified. SQL Server directory
structure, registry structure, and service names
will incorporate the instance ID of the SQL
Server instance.
INSTANCENAME Specify a default or named instance. MSSQLSERVER
is the default instance for non-Express editions
and SQLExpress for Express editions. This
parameter is required when installing the SQL
Server Database Engine (SQL), Analysis Services
(AS), or Reporting Services (RS).
QUIET Setup will not display any user interface.
QUIETSIMPLE Setup will display progress only, without any
user interaction.
SQMREPORTING Specify that SQL Server feature usage data can be
collected and sent to Microsoft. Specify 1 or
True to enable and 0 or False to disable this
feature.
UIMODE Parameter that controls the user interface
behavior. Valid values are Normal for the full
UI,AutoAdvance for a simplied UI, and
EnableUIOnServerCore for bypassing Server Core
setup GUI block.
X86 Specifies that Setup should install into WOW64.
This command line argument is not supported on an
IA64 or a 32-bit system.
Press any key to exit...
However, nothing here is immediately helpful. But then there’s this post that talks about the repeated-reboot-pending-failure for a standard SQL Server setup, and I found myself wondering if you could use the same undocumented /SkipRules parameter with a value of “RebootRequiredCheck”.
C:\<<somepath>>\ >SQLServer2014-KB4032541-x64.exe /action=Patch /SkipRules=RebootRequiredCheck
You can. No reboot check performed. Patching can continue. Hurrah.
Warning
Undocumented parameters are undocumented. Which means they’re not supported. You have been warned.
