I made a bit of a mistake this week on a particular deployment I was involved in but it threw up a problem that if you do a single server deployment or a deployment of a certain topolgy you might run up against.

I installed Reporting Services 2008 R2 on a server and configured it for Integrated Mode with SharePoint 2010.  I then applied Service Pack 1 to the installlation – so far so good.

I then tried to install PowerPivot onto the same server and despite all of the SQL Server installation checks passing, once the installer got onto the business of actually doing the install it failed saying that the version of sqlncli.msi (SQL Server 2008 R2 Native Client) on the installer was not correct. Didn’t take me long to realise that SP1 had upgraded the version of Native Client and the PowerPivot installation was trying to override it.  Did seem to be any way around the issue apart from uninstall Service Pack 1 for SQL Server 2008 R2, and well done to Microsoft for allowing a rollback!

Once I uninstalled Service Pack 1, rebooted and reran the PowerPivot installation – all was good.  Moral of story, make sure you install all the SQL bits and pieces you need before you install Service Pack 1 for SQL Server 2008 R2.

Cheers

Dave Mc