zoggling - Tuesday, January 2, 2018 7:56 AM

We have made various attempts to update two of our SQL Server 2014 instances, but the update errors on every attempt with the following message (even with full administrator privileges):

"Error installing SQL Server Common Files
This installation is forbidden by system policy. Contact your system administrator.
Error code: 1625"

We are trying to update the builds below to Service Pack 2 CU7 - build 12.0.5556.0 (KB 4037356). Previous attempts to update to SP1 a few months back resulted in the same error.

Current Builds
Microsoft SQL Server 2014 (SP1-GDR) (KB4019091) - 12.0.4237.0 (X64)
Jul 5 2017 22:03:42
Copyright (c) Microsoft Corporation
Web Edition (64-bit) on Windows NT 6.3 <X64> (Build 9600: ) (Hypervisor)

Microsoft SQL Server 2014 - 12.0.4100.1 (X64)
Apr 20 2015 17:29:27
Copyright (c) Microsoft Corporation
Web Edition (64-bit) on Windows NT 6.3 <X64> (Build 9600: ) (Hypervisor)

We have attempted installs with "DisableMSIpolicy" in the registry set to 0 (“Windows Installer is enabled for all applications. All install operations are allowed.â€), full admin privileges, temporarily de-activated antivirus, checked the domain group policy settings, etc. but nothing seems to help. Here are some additional things we've tried:

- Modified local security policies
- Modified Domain GP for admin accounts
- Used a domain admin account
- Use the local administrator account
- Use RSOP to show whether the domain policy and the local policy is in effect for software installations (showed the domain policy was in precedence)

When the update failed – Windows thought it was installed and it appeared as an installed patch even though it wasn’t there and had rolled back anything it had done.

We always removed the “apparently†installed service pack from “programs and features†before re-trying.

We checked the domain policies against another domains policies (where the service pack did update) and they appear to be the same.

The only success we had was removing the server (a restored VM copy) from the domain.     

Can anyone please advise how we can update these instances?