You receive a "The drive chosen for the program files installation path, C:, is not valid on all nodes of the cluster" error message in SQL Server 2000 virtual server setup (279642)

SYMPTOMS

During the setup of a SQL Server 2000 virtual server, if File and Print Sharing for Microsoft Networks is not enabled on a node of the cluster, the installation may fail, and you may receive the following error message:

The drive chosen for the program files installation path, C:, is not valid on all nodes of the cluster. Choose another drive to install the program files.

The following errors are reported in the SQLSTP.log file on the node where SQL Server is being installed:

11:04:03 Begin Action: Setup Type
11:04:35 The drive chosen for the program files installation path, C:, is not valid on all the nodes of the cluster. Choose another drive to install the program files.
11:04:36 Action Exit Handler:
11:04:38 StatsGenerate returned: 2
11:04:38 StatsGenerate (0x0,0x1,0xf00000,0x0,1033,303,0x0,0x10000008,0,0,0)

CAUSE

During the setup of a SQL Server 2000 virtual server, the binaries are copied locally to both nodes of the cluster. To successfully copy the program files to both nodes of the cluster, the Setup program must make a connection to the remote node using the administrative share \\nodename\drive$\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server (where nodename is the Windows NT machine name for the secondary node and drive$ denotes the shared out local system drive). If File and Print Sharing for Microsoft Networks is not enabled, the Setup program cannot find this path, it fails, and you receive the error message.

The expectation during cluster setup is that both nodes have a drive C and that is where the operating system is installed. Similarly, the directory path for the system files on both the nodes is the same and the program files for SQL are always placed on the local drive and not on the shared disk.

WORKAROUND

To work around this problem, use the following methods:

Enable File and Print Sharing for Microsoft Networks on both of the nodes of the cluster.
Make sure that the system drives are shared out as administrative shares on both nodes of the cluster.
To log in to both the nodes of the cluster, use a domain account that is a member of the local administrators group.
Check HKey_LocalMachine\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion and make sure that the value for CommonFilesDir and ProgramFilesDir is the same on both the nodes.