topic universal forwarder on windows: installation directory must be on a local hard drive in Getting Data In

universal forwarder on windows: installation directory must be on a local hard drive

vistek — Thu, 21 Apr 2016 23:11:49 GMT

I've installed the universal forwarder on two of my domain controllers without issue.

For some reason, on the remaining two, I'm getting the following error on the screen where you specify install directory:

"installation directory must be on a local hard drive"

This doesn't make any sense as the I've left the default directory on the C: drive.

Has anyone seen this before and how do I resolve? I'm using the exact same file/version as on the other 2 DCs (latest build of 6.4)...

Re: universal forwarder on windows: installation directory must be on a local hard drive

supabuck — Fri, 22 Apr 2016 01:23:58 GMT

Try this:

You can press Windows + R to access RUN for Server 2008 R2 or prior versions.

Now, type in RUN program %Temp%

Windows Explorer will bring you to Temp folder, you can select all and hit DELETE.

Follow these few steps to install your program under “Administrative privileges mode”

Locate your installation file and remember the path to it.
Let’s say I copy my installation file to C drive and its name is “UniversalForwarder6.4.0\blah\blah.msi“. So, the path to it is “C:\UniversalForwarder6.4.0\blah\blah.msi”
Press Windows key to bring up the menu, and then type cmd
A tiny black DOS icon will show up in your search box. Now, right click on that and choose Run as administrator
MSIexec /i “C:\UniversalForwarder6.4.0\blah\blah.msi”

Press Enter and you can start installing your program

Let me know if this works 🙂

Source: http://ephams.com/2013/03/10/msi-installer-error-installation-directory-local-hard-drive/

Re: universal forwarder on windows: installation directory must be on a local hard drive

maciep — Fri, 22 Apr 2016 01:44:09 GMT

I doubt this is related to the msi specifically. A lot posts on the internet with similar issues suggest running it as administrator. If you can do that directly from the msi itself, then launch a command prompt as administrator and manually install it with

msiexec /i "[path to the splunk msi]"

Not sure if that is the issue you're running into, but seems to be a relatively common solution for the same error on other msi's.

Re: universal forwarder on windows: installation directory must be on a local hard drive

vistek — Fri, 22 Apr 2016 02:47:48 GMT

Thanks for suggestion but that was the first thing I tried. I've installed on a dozen other servers. Those two DCs are an issue for whatever reason. It's weird....

Re: universal forwarder on windows: installation directory must be on a local hard drive

maciep — Fri, 22 Apr 2016 03:08:16 GMT

Have your tried reviewing the install log? I think it defaults your %temp% directory or you can set it on the command line with the verbose option too: /lv "path to log file". Maybe there will be something more telling in there.

Re: universal forwarder on windows: installation directory must be on a local hard drive

javiergn — Fri, 22 Apr 2016 08:49:06 GMT

Can you query the drive type via WMI for instance to make sure Windows sees it as local?

From PowerShell it could be something as:

Get-WMIObject -Class Win32_LogicalDisk | Select DeviceID, VolumeName, DriveType

Or with PowerShell v3:

Get-CIMInstance -ClassName Win32_LogicalDisk | Select DeviceID, VolumeName, DriveType

Where the drive type hash:

2 = "Removable disk"
3 = "Fixed local disk"
4 = "Network disk"
5 = "Compact disk"