I didn't see this when I perused the known issues in the release notes but it seems that WHS server passwords that have spaces will break the connector setup for Vail. I found this out the hard way after 3 reinstalls of Vail and 1 reinstall of Windows 7
before realizing that I should have probably done the smart thing of analyzing the logs from the Vail log collector.
From looking over the logs it seems that when the connector setup calls into ClientCoreX86.msi from the command line the WHS password is passed to it via a command line argument. The problem is the password string is passed though the command line as is
without quoting it (as the
Windows Installer SDK mentioned from the log error helpfully point out) so the the portion of the password after the space is treated as separate command line argument to the MSI installer. This results in connector install being
cancelled with an unexpected error in the connector install wizard.
The relevant lines from the log that supports these conclusions are below. For context the server password at the time this log was generated was "Test Password":
LOG
Original package ==> C:\Program Files\Windows Server\Client Deployment Files\ClientCoreX86.msi
<snip>
Command Line: WHS_PREMIUM_CLIENT=true ADMIN_USERNAME=Administrator ADMIN_PASSWORD=**********
<snip>
PROPERTY CHANGE: Adding WHS_PREMIUM_CLIENT property. Its value is 'true'.
PROPERTY CHANGE: Adding ADMIN_USERNAME property. Its value is 'Administrator'.
PROPERTY CHANGE: Adding ADMIN_PASSWORD property. Its value is '**********'.
Info 1639.Invalid command line argument. Consult the Windows Installer SDK for detailed command line help.
PASSWORD
END LOG
Note that due to the nature of the bug and the way it is logged there is a partial password disclosure of the WHS server password when the logs are generated as the portion of the password after the space is shown in the clear below the command line argument
error message instead of obscured with asterisks.
This is somewhat mitigated by the fact that the log uppercases the command line argument name when logged and that if a password has multiple spaces that only the portion between the first and second is shown in the clear in the error message.
I have filed a bug for this on connect
here.
