Couldnt quite work out what to call this blog post - as it ties so many different areas in together.

As Ive written about before - Ive been busy doing a mass upgrade and virtualisation project at my new place. First step was getting the HyperV hosts all set up. That was a breeze, as was the SAN - all bar a bit of waiting whilst it all initialised.

Once that was done, it was time to get the roles onto each of the nice new HyperV Clients. An SQL cluster, a pair of SCCM servers, and Forefront Endpoint on one of the SCCM boxes too.

SCCM went on fine, as did SQL - nothing to see here. FEP however... more of an issue.

For those also playing with clustering, or just FEP in general - here are the setup gotchas!

1. SQL Reporting Services

Make sure that one of the SQL Nodes has SQL Reporting Services set up, and initialise its database. Point your FEP install at it - not the Cluster. The DB still points at the Cluster though.

2. SQL Server Prerequisite Error

This looks like:

"Setup cannot verify the service principal name (SPN) for this account. Ensure that there is a single valid SPN entry for this account in the Active Directory Domain Services.

Account: Yourdomain\accountname"

And to fix it...

Launch an elevated CMD Prompt and use the following...

setspn -a mssqlsvc/NODE1FQDN Domain\ServiceAccountname

setspn -a mssqlsvc/NODE2FQDN Domain\ServiceAccountname

setspn -a mssqlsvc/NODE1 Domain\ServiceAccountname

setspn -a mssqlsvc/NODE2 Domain\ServiceAccountname

setspn -a mssqlsvc/CLUSTERFQDN Domain\ServiceAccountname

setspn -a mssqlsvc/CLUSTER Domain\ServiceAccountname

3. Pending Restart

This one is a real pain. You restart, as it sayis, but the more stranger thing happens after you restart your computer and start the Setup again. The same is displayed. Why? Well, maybe because on the FEP 2010 requirement is to have a working Configuration Manager 2007 infrastructure and almost always ConfigMgr will have open files and read/write operations on the computer you’re trying to install FEP 2010.

So, to workaround this problem you have to modify your registry (do it on your own as I did). Open PendingFileRenameOperations key from HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager and delete or copy its content to a notepad. Save the key and start Setup now, it should work, at least it for me.

Hope this helps

Stuart