Sharepoint 2003's installation process is one of the most delicate and uncooperative I've seen in while. Quite a surprise in this day and age - responsive, coherent installations is something we've grown to expect from Microsoft's server systems in recent versions - or maybe it's just me. :)

Sharepoint's installation can be baffled by any number of reasons - lack of harddisk space on drive C:, remains of previous installations, even something as simple as a wrong password entered for the applicative user to run the services. All of these errors share one thing between them - the installer won't pop up a messagebox to let you know what happened. It won't even give you an error warning and let you try again (to a different path perhaps, or to retype the username). It will simply continue on UNINSTALLING SPS (and WSS, if it was part of the process) and direct you to a folder full of log files out of which you're suppose to dig the actual reason for the failure and presumably try again - yes, a 10-minute process just to find out I forgot to put the domain name before the username for the service account.

Extremely annoying behavior, especially when this unexpected uninstallation doesn't always do a perfect job of removing all traces of what just happened from the registry.

So remember, boys and girls. When installing Sharepoint, be extra-careful to cross your T's and dot your I's and make sure to read every screen for potential pitfalls, because wizard or not, you won't always have a Back button to fix your mistakes. Tread carefully...

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