Error with initdb and postgres.exe causing installation to fail

Hi

I have been trying to install Postgres 8.4.2 on a Windows 7 64 bit machine and after trying several different permission changes on the installation folders and what not I still keep getting this error in the install-postgresql.log during the installation and my installation is failing.

Initialising the database cluster (this may take a few minutes)...
Executing cscript //NoLogo "C:\Program Files (x86)\PostgreSQL\8.4/installer/server/initcluster.vbs" "postgres" "postgres" "<password_omitted_for_this_post>" "C:\Program Files (x86)\PostgreSQL\8.4" "C:\Program Files (x86)\PostgreSQL\8.4\data" 5432 "DEFAULT"
Script exit code: 1

Script output:
 
Ensuring we can write to the data directory (using icacls):
processed file: C:\Program Files (x86)\PostgreSQL\8.4\data
Successfully processed 1 files; Failed processing 0 files

The files belonging to this database system will be owned by user "<username_ommited_for_the_Post>".
This user must also own the server process.

The database cluster will be initialized with locale English_United States.1252.
The default text search configuration will be set to "english".

fixing permissions on existing directory C:/Program Files (x86)/PostgreSQL/8.4/data ... ok
creating subdirectories ... ok
selecting default max_connections ... 100
selecting default shared_buffers ... 32MB
creating configuration files ... ok
creating template1 database in C:/Program Files (x86)/PostgreSQL/8.4/data/base/1 ... initdb: could not execute command ""C:/Program Files (x86)/PostgreSQL/8.4/bin/postgres.exe" --boot -x1 -F ": No error
initdb: removing contents of data directory "C:/Program Files (x86)/PostgreSQL/8.4/data"

Failed to initialise the database cluster with initdb

Script stderr:
 Program ended with an error exit code

Error running cscript //NoLogo "C:\Program Files (x86)\PostgreSQL\8.4/installer/server/initcluster.vbs" "postgres" "postgres" "<password_omitted_for_this_post>" "C:\Program Files (x86)\PostgreSQL\8.4" "C:\Program Files (x86)\PostgreSQL\8.4\data" 5432 "DEFAULT" : Program ended with an error exit code
Problem running post-install step. Installation may not complete correctly

Any ideas on what I am doing wrong?

Check if windows scripting host (WSH) is enabled or not. If WSH script enabled, the Windows Script Host Settings dialog box will popup. If disabled, try to enable the WSH.

Please find more information for WSH using below link:-

http://www.windowsnetworking.com/kbase/WindowsTips...leWindowsScriptingHostWSH.html

And also possibility to getting this error, if wscript is enabled but there's no engine associated with .vbs files. For fixing this issue

Go to file %windir%\inf\wsh.inf, right click and select 'Install'

re-run postgresql installer and it will work successfully.

Thie problem also bothered me long time.

the initdb action will use _popen function to invoke a new process postgres.exe.
in _popen function, the environment COMSPEC is used when call CreateProcess.

in default, the value of COMSPEC is c:\windows\system32\cmd.exe, but sometimes, the value was changed to "c:\windows\system32" which cause CreateProcess failed.

after change value of COMSPEC to the right value (c:\windows\system32\cmd.exe), the postres server can be installed successfully

Thank you. Your post was immensely useful.

I've seen this issue in the wild and have now written it up for others to try to make it easier to find:

http://dba.stackexchange.com/a/28893/7788

[url]https://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/Running_%26_Installing_PostgreSQL_On_Native_Windows#Check_the_.25COMSPEC.25_environment_variable
[/url]
http://archives.postgresql.org/message-id/50A9B58E.5030200@2ndQuadrant.com

I would really like to see the installer test for this as well as all the other windows broken-ness it checks for.