Problem during installing PostgreSQL on WindowsXP SP3

I've tried installing postgresql versions 3.5 to 4.2.1 using different installers like msi, bitrock one click installer etc.,

All of them result in the same error which is attached below. It seems that initdb fails because it couldn't locate pg_authid file.

I'm wondering why this problem is occuring even when I'm using installers like msi, bitrock one click installer etc.,

initdb -D "c:\Program Files\PostgreSQL\8.4\data" -E UTF8 --locale=English

Log:

The files belonging to this database system will be owned by user "USER".
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/PostgreSQL/8.4/data ... ok
creating subdirectories ... ok
selecting default max_connections ... The system cannot find the file specified.
The system cannot find the file specified.
The system cannot find the file specified.
The system cannot find the file specified.
The system cannot find the file specified.
The system cannot find the file specified.
10
selecting default shared_buffers ... The system cannot find the file specified.
The system cannot find the file specified.
The system cannot find the file specified.
The system cannot find the file specified.
The system cannot find the file specified.
The system cannot find the file specified.
The system cannot find the file specified.
The system cannot find the file specified.
The system cannot find the file specified.
The system cannot find the file specified.
The system cannot find the file specified.
The system cannot find the file specified.
The system cannot find the file specified.
The system cannot find the file specified.
The system cannot find the file specified.
The system cannot find the file specified.
The system cannot find the file specified.
400kB
creating configuration files ... ok
creating template1 database in C:/Program Files/PostgreSQL/8.4/data/base/1 ... ok
initializing pg_authid ... The system cannot find the file specified.
child process exited with exit code 1
initdb: removing contents of data directory "C:/Program Files/PostgreSQL/8.4/data"

Any help in figuring out why this occurs would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

Hello,

Please make sure you run the one-click installer from a user which has administrative privileges.

Some tips:
i) Try from a clean state. Delete existing folders, postgres user etc.
ii) Try a simple installation path.. e.g. (C:\pgsql)

and if the installation fails again.. Please attach the installation logs, you can find them at (%TEMP%\install-postgresql.log).

Hi,

As per your instruction, I tried installing postgresql on the following path "C:\pgsql\" and I'm getting the same error again.

Attached is the log file.

I'm getting the same error for all the installer's that I tried from 8.3.5 version to 8.4.1.

Another problem that I'm facing is once the installation is done, I cannot uninstall this using the uninstall.exe or control panel.

I'm not sure why this phenomenon occurs.

Hi,

I have experienced the same problems as above, also reported in Bug #4691 and bug #5222. After a long 6 hour debugging session I've found out what the issue was. It turns out that my Windows XP system was not recognising the "NUL" device. The following is an example of the issue I was seeing:

...
creating directory C:/Program Files/PostgreSQL/9.0/data/pg_tblspc ... ok
selecting default max_connections ... The system cannot find the file specified.
The system cannot find the file specified.
The system cannot find the file specified.
The system cannot find the file specified.
The system cannot find the file specified.
The system cannot find the file specified.
10
...

also, the following test would fail:

C:\>echo "test" > NUL
The system cannot find the file specified.

The commands used in initdb.c output to DEVNULL , which is equal to "NUL" on windows systems. My particular system was having an issue with these commands. I was able to fix it by reading up about the issue - this was an excellent resource for fixing the problem:
http://www.cynosurex.com/Forums/DisplayComments.php?file=Batch/NUL_Missing_on_WinFLP

The process to fix the issue was as follows:
1. Download Null.reg from above link (file is attached)
2. Download Install.bat from above link (also attached)
3. Copy these two files to a temp directory
4. Also copy the following two files to the same temp directory: C:\WINDOWS\system32\regini.exe C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\null.sys
5. Run Install.bat - should install the null device successfully
6. Restart Windows

initdb.exe ran correctly after completing the steps above.

This is the area of source code (initdb.c) that has the issue:

printf(_("selecting default max_connections ... "));
fflush(stdout);

for (i = 0; i < connslen; i++)
{
test_conns = trial_conns[i];
test_buffs = MIN_BUFS_FOR_CONNS(test_conns);

snprintf(cmd, sizeof(cmd),
SYSTEMQUOTE "\"%s\" --boot -x0 %s "
"-c max_connections=%d "
"-c shared_buffers=%d "
"< \"%s\" > \"%s\" 2>&1" SYSTEMQUOTE,
backend_exec, boot_options,
test_conns, test_buffs,
DEVNULL, DEVNULL);
status = system(cmd);
if (status == 0)
{
ok_buffers = test_buffs;
break;
}
}

As you can see the DEVNULL was the problem. Perhaps one solution would be to execute the "echo" test, and the output can determine whether to use the "NUL" device.

Cheers,
Robert