SMS Installation Incomplete with Missing Admin Drive Share (122988)

SYMPTOMS

When you install Microsoft Systems Management Server on a drive that has the Administrator share deleted, Systems Management Server installs a site that has most subdirectories missing, and Setup does not report any errors. This results in an unusable Systems Management Server site.

CAUSE

Systems Management Server Setup and the Systems Management Server services require that the Administrative drive shares (such as C$) exist on a server before Systems Management Server is installed. These shares are installed by default by LAN Manager and Windows NT.

Systems Management Server Setup begins installation and creates part of the directory structure on the target drive. Systems Management Server then starts the SMS_SITE_CONFIG_MANAGER service which completes the installation. The service attempts to look for the UNC name \\<server name>\<drive>$ to complete the installation. If this share doesn't exist, an error will be reported in the SCMAN.LOG file but the site does not complete the installation.

WORKAROUND

The drive administrative shares will be recreated the next time you reboot of the system or you can manually recreate the shares. In order to recover from the damaged Systems Management Server installation, use Systems Management Server Setup to remove the site and then reinstall it from the beginning.

STATUS

Microsoft has confirmed this to be a problem in Systems Management Server versions 1.0, 1.1, and 2.0. We are researching this problem and will post new information here in the Microsoft Knowledge Base as it becomes available.