Installing Message Queuing server on Vista

Question

I have a Windows Vista Business (32 bit) PC at work. Now I need to add the Microsoft Message Queuing Server to my installation and do the following:

1. open control panel
2. Add or Remove programs
3. On the left pane selected "Enable/Disable Windows components"
4. On the resulting dialog scrolled down to "Microsoft Message Queue Server"
5. Enabled ALL the checkboxes belonging to MSMQ
6. Pressed OK

Then the system goes to think for a while and proceeds to "install" the MSMQ server component. Then it says I have to reboot. I let it reboot the system.

Machine reboots and some stuff appears on a black screen looking like registry keys . Then it boots again and shows me another dialog saying "Installing update 3 of 3" or something like that. I wait until it reaches 100% and then it says it has to reboot again. So far so good, no error has been produced.

The machine reboots for the 2nd time in this process and everything seems fine, just before the Login screen when I am about to get happy I get a notification (Windows) that Windows Vista was feeling unwell and that it needs to rollback the installation. It does that and MSMQ is NOT there.

I have tried this already 5 times and it is ALWAYS the same! I can't get MSMQ installed on Windows Vista.

Any clues?

Answer 1

Firstly for thorougness sake, have a look at this blog entry regarding the order in which to install the prerequisites for MSMQ. It also has some guidance as to how to install the service.

If you want to install MSMQ with the HTTP support feature, you must install IIS and WAS before attempting to install MSMQ HTTP Support. If you do not install IIS and WAS first, the install of MSMQ HTTP Support will fail, but you can recover by installing IIS and WAS, then retrying your install of MSMQ HTTP Support.

You can also have a look at the TechNet article here that offers a few alternative methods to installing the MSMQ service.

It is also possible the required dependancy services are not installed or started as per this article.

• Message Queuing access control
• Remote Procedure Call (RPC)
• Windows Event Log

I would also suggest you make sure you have SP1 loaded, and I have found a few references to MSMQ failing when joined to a domain. Possibly try and get one of the Domain Administrators to log it and iniate the install.

Answer 2

Here's how I finally managed to install MSMQ:

1. disable UAC and restart the computer
2. open an elevated command prompt (Start -> Run -> type cmd -> right-click and select "Run as administrator")
3. type optionalfeatures.exe and hit Enter
4. in the Windows Features window that opens, select MSMQ and all its sub-options and click OK
5. after the restart, MSMQ will be installed