Unable to reinstall SharePoint in Dev - Error 1706

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In a production environment, uninstalling SharePoint is not recommended. Reinstalling SharePoint is not recommended either. The recommendation if you ever get into some kind of scenario where you need to reinstall SharePoint in production servers, the recommendation is to rebuild the server. However, sometimes it’s not possible, or sometimes you want to reinstall SharePoint on dev environment.

If that’s the case make sure you do the following:

  1. Install the bits of SharePoint with the same patch level as it was on the server you are reinstalling you SharePoint bits at. So if you have a SharePoint server that was running SharePoint 2010 SP1 + April CU, prepare your bits slipstreamed with SP1 + April CU.
  2. Make sure you shut down all the SharePoint services on all boxes and stop the SQL service during the reinstall process
  3. After you have reinstalled SharePoint on all servers in the farm, make sure the SQL Server is accessible and then run the configuration wizard (PSConfig) on all servers serially.

If you get the following error when you try to run the SharePoint installer:

Description:

  Setup did not complete successfully. We are sorry for the inconvenience.

 

Problem signature:

  Problem Event Name:                      Office12Setup

  Problem Signature 01:                     {10140000-1F00-0000-0000--0000000FF1CE}

  Problem Signature 02:                     14.0.4755.1000

  Problem Signature 03:                     X

  Problem Signature 04:                     1603

  Problem Signature 05:                     XLSERVER.en-us\setup.xml

  Problem Signature 06:                     X

  Problem Signature 07:                     X

  OS Version:                                       6.1.7601.2.1.0.274.10

  Locale ID:                                          1033

 

Additional information about the problem:

  LCID:                                                  1033

 

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And when you look into the Application logs in the event viewer you see something like this:

Product: ######### -- Error 1706. An installation package for the product ######### cannot be found. Try the installation again using a valid copy of the installation package '#########.msi'.

 

Examples:

  1. Product: Microsoft Excel Mobile Viewer Components -- Error 1706. An installation package for the product Microsoft Excel Mobile Viewer Components cannot be found. Try the installation again using a valid copy of the installation package 'mewa.msi'.
  2. Product: Microsoft SharePoint Foundation 2010 1033 Lang Pack -- Error 1706. An installation package for the product Microsoft SharePoint Foundation 2010 1033 Lang Pack cannot be found. Try the installation again using a valid copy of the installation package 'wssmui.msi'.

That could be an indication that you have installed SharePoint previously from a network location or a CD drive, then the installer unpacked the setup files in a temp folder that no longer exists.

In order to correct that situation go to the setup folder and find one of the MSIs that it complains about. For example search for 'mewa.msi' then right click on it and choose repair, that is going to prompt you with original location of that MSI which it was installed from before. Copy that location somewhere and cancel the repair. That’s the location where you need to copy your setup bits to. Once you do this everything will work fine.