Veritas Storage Foundation 6.0 for Windows (SFW) installation fails at 10% with an error "Update Path Variable: Operation failed”

Problem

When installing or upgrading Storage Foundation for Windows (SFW), including SFW High Availability (SFW HA), the installation wizard will fail with the message "Update Path Variable: Operation failed" at 10%.  However it may be apparent that the installation is completing in the background.  If the installation is allowed to complete, although difficult or impossible to track in the Veritas Installer window, you can refer to the installation log directories, or the Windows event viewer for MSInstaller messages as the SFW packages are installed.

If the server is rebooted before the installation is complete, the installation will be incomplete and a repair installation will have to be performed.

Error Message

The "Update Path Variable: Operation failed" in VPITrace.

VPITrace log shows:

Cause

In many environments, the PATH variable is limited to 1023 characters. If the PATH variable during the installation exceeds 1023 characters, then the above message may be seen. This may occur during an upgrade when the SFW 6.0 portions are added, before the clean up of older path information that is redundant is removed.

Solution

If SFW 6.0 has already been installed as part of an upgrade, then the path will have to be manually fixed. Some environment information after reboot may also have to be corrected:

1. Remove the 32 bit components of SFW 6.0 from the path, for example C:\Program Files (x86)\Veritas\Veritas Object Bus\bin
    
2. Correct the VMPATH environment variable to point to the new location, by default this will be changing from "C:\Program Files (x86)\Veritas\Veritas Volume Manager 5.1\" to "C:\Program Files\Veritas\Veritas Volume Manager\"
    
3. Confirm that the old "vxob" service (Veritas Enterprise Administrator Service) and "vxvm" service (Veritas Storage Agent) registry entries have been removed, this may manifest itself as a Windows System event error that the serivce failed to start, then the installation is not complete and a repair installation will need to be done.
   
   The vxob and vxvm registry keys are located under:
   HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\vxob
   HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\vxvm
    

 If SFW has not yet been installed there are two options:

1. Temporarily shorten the path by removing non Windows Operating System and SFW portions (for example, if upgrading a SQL server and not using a rolling upgrade then SQL server portions can be removed) before the upgrade.
   
   NOTE: When using this option adjust the path by using the environment variables from server properties -> environment variables -> PATH and rebooting, verify the change.
    
2. Contact Veritas Technical Support for more information and quote this TECH article, a private fix is available that addresses this issue, and handles a longer path.

Applies To

Upgrade of Veritas Storage Foundation for Windows (SFW) to version 6.0