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Using CRM with a SQL named instance

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If you want to use CRM 3.0 with a named SQL instance you first have to disable the Environmental Diagnostics Wizard (EDW).  How to do this?  I couldn’t find a way except for a couple blogs/newsgroups pointing me to a support call with Microsoft.  The Microsoft CRM Support Team might not like me posting this simple solution, but I think it is crazy that we got charged a support call for something like this and hopefully my post can prevent someone else from being on hold for two hours.

To disable it, you simply open RegEdit on the CRM server, browse to the MSCRM key at HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE -> SOFTWARE -> Microsoft -> MSCRM and add the DWORD “IgnoreChecks” and give a value of 1.

You will have to reinstall CRM on the box and reconfigure what SQL server/instance you want to use there.  You will get to the screen that has the warnings/errors, and the SQL line item will still give you an warning/error, but with the registry edit you can still click the Next button to proceed (without EDW disabled you can’t proceed).  After finishing the install you can delete the registry entry you added.

As a disclaimer: backup everything, don’t do this on your production box, and if you’re unsure about any of this call MS support!

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5 Comments

  1. Anthony Monsees — January 18, 2007 #

    Thanks for posting this solution as it saved us time and money on a support incident.

    One addition thing to note is if you’re planning to install CRM on a named instance from the beginning, you can add the key (HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE -> SOFTWARE -> Microsoft -> MSCRM -> IgnoreChecks) before you first install and it works the same. I’ve done 3 installations with named instances so far and haven’t ran into any issues.

  2. Chad — August 8, 2007 #

    Thanks for this tip– you’ve saved me a lot of hassle!

  3. Jody — October 4, 2007 #

    Thanks a million for this post. It was extremely helpful, and saved several hours ofhold music playing at MS support. Cheers

  4. Joe — October 5, 2007 #

    What is really odd here is that Microsoft tells you to create the named instance when installing Small Business Server and even tells you how to change the Sharepoint install to work with the new named instance. Which means everyone who installs Small Business Server and upgrades from express to SQL 2005 per Microsoft’s recommendation will have this issue but there is nothing about this on their website. How frustrating…I have spent days trying to solve this and your site was the only one I found that gave me the answer.

    Thanks for taking to time to correct this stupid oversight by our friends at Microsoft.

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