I encountered this error while installing KB3045311. In fact, you might get such errors when installing any patch for one of my customers. The error was the very popular system error 5.
At first, I thought I am already aware of this error and in fact, I had already blogged about the same.
SQL SERVER – FIX – Error 1402. Could not open key: UNKNOWN\Components. System error 5
If the solutions given the above article does not help, you may try following the solution we found in this case. To follow the steps, you need to first look at SQL Setup Logs. In my case, there were 3 components that had failed which I found by looking into the setup log files. I always search for “return value 3” in MSI logs to find the error.
Product: Microsoft SQL Server VSS Writer — Error 1402. Could not open key: UNKNOWN\Components\7ABFE44842C12B390AF18C3B9B1A1EE8\65E5D8C621AC2B24095740B4C407769A. System error 5. Verify that you have sufficient access to that key, or contact your support personnel.
Once you have identified that long strange number after “components”, make a note as we need them later.
WORKAROUND/SOLUTION
Notice carefully, every error seen above is pointing to the same registry path: UNKNOWN\Components\7ABFE44842C12B390AF18C3B9B1A1EE8\65E5D8C621AC2B24095740B4C407769A
What is UNKNOWN there? Well, in the registry check and we should able to navigate until: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Installer\UserData\S-1-5-18\Components\7ABFE44842C12B390AF18C3B9B1A1EE8
But when I tried to access any GUID under this we get an Access Denied. We followed the below steps to get rid of Access Denied message
Follow the below steps on each GUID
- Right Click the GUID –> go to Permissions
- Click on Advanced –> go to Owner –> Choose <hostname>\administrators –> Click Ok –> Click Apply –> Click Ok –> Click Ok
- Right Click the GUID –> go to Permissions –>
- Click on Advanced –> Click Add –> Type <hostname>\administrators and click Ok –> Click Ok –> Click Ok
After this we were able to access the all the subkeys under, HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Installer\UserData\S-1-5-18\Components\7ABFE44842C12B390AF18C3B9B1A1EE8
After following all the above steps, we no longer had issues installing KB3045311. If you find any other solution for above error, please share via comments.
Reference: Pinal Dave (https://blog.sqlauthority.com)
First appeared on SQL SERVER – FIX – Error 1402 – Could not Open Key: UNKNOWN\Components – System Error 5 (Another Solution)