SQL Server 2000 or SP4 installation or bringing SQL resource online after install/ upgrade fails with "The specified service does not exist as an installed service"

After installing SQL Server on a cluster or upgrading it to Sevice Pack 4, if you reboot the nodes then you get below message or try to bring the SQL Server resource online from cluster administrator, then it fails with below error

"The specified service does not exist as an installed service"

You might observe that the setup did not fail at all. But in the setup logs you will find that the SQL setup or service pack had copied the binaries successfully but it had failed in creating the services.

Setup succeeds as this is a non-fatal error.

 

Resolution

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  •  You may register the service by using the command from setup logs itself, for example

scm.exe -Silent 1 -Action 5 -ExePath "C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL\binn\sqlservr.exe" -Service "MSSQLSERVER"

scm.exe -Silent 1 -Action 7 -Service MSSQLSERVER -SvcStartType 1 -SvcAccount "CCC\BT_ATLSQ02" -SvcEPwd

scm.exe -Silent 1 -Action 5 -Service "SQLSERVERAGENT" -Dependencies MSSQLSERVER -ExePath "C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL\binn\sqlagent.exe" -SvcAccount "CCC\BT_ATLSQ02" -SvcEPwd

  •  If the service registration failes with error that the service name is already under use then please remove the entry for the service from the registry location "HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services" & reboot the node
  • For more options with Service Control Manager SCM.exe or SC.exe, execute it from Start->Run or from command prompt