Support Tip: VMM 2008 R2 setup may crash with certain language settings

Hi everyone, Mark Stanfill here with a quick heads-up on a VMM setup issue I ran into the other day. I was talking with a customer who was trying to install System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 R2 but the setup process was crashing with a call stack similar to the following:

Exception object: 0000000002ca1010

Exception type: System.ArgumentOutOfRangeException

Message: Count cannot be less than zero.

InnerException: <none>

StackTrace (generated):

   SP               IP               Function

   000000001E45E8D0 0000000000000001 mscorlib_ni!System.String.Remove(Int32, Int32)+0x2

   000000001E45E8D0 000007FF0043C8C6 VMSETUP!Microsoft.VirtualManager.Setup.PrerequisiteInstallation.BaseInstaller.ResetInstallSource(System.String)+0xd6

   000000001E45E930 000007FF00439562 VMSETUP!Microsoft.VirtualManager.Setup.PrerequisiteInstallation.PrerequisiteInstaller.Install()+0x5b2

   000000001E45EA30 000007FF00438DB1 VMSETUP!Microsoft.VirtualManager.Setup.PrerequisiteInstallation.PrerequisiteInstaller.InstallPrerequisites()+0xa1

   000000001E45EAA0 000007FF00438845 VMSETUP!Microsoft.VirtualManager.Setup.Wizard.ProgressPage.InstallRequiredPrerequisites()+0x65

   000000001E45EB40 000007FF00436400 VMSETUP!Microsoft.VirtualManager.Setup.Wizard.ProgressPage.InstallerThreadEntry()+0x2b0

   000000001E45EC10 000007FEF3292BBC mscorlib_ni!System.Threading.ExecutionContext.Run(System.Threading.ExecutionContext, System.Threading.ContextCallback, System.Object)+0x9c

   000000001E45EC60 000007FEF332A91E mscorlib_ni!System.Threading.ThreadHelper.ThreadStart()+0x4e

After doing some investigating we found that the operating system language settings had been changed from English (US) to another locale. Fortunately for us there is an easy workaround which is to simply change the Language settings while doing the install, then change it back once setup is complete.

If you run into this issue, open Control Panel, select Region and Language (“Change display language” if you are in Category View), click the Administrative tab, under Language for non-Unicode programs, click Change system locale.  Select English (United States) and click OK.  You may need to reboot.

Click the Administrative tab, and then, under Language for non-Unicode programs, click Change system locale.  If you are prompted for an administrator password or confirmation, type the password or provide confirmation.

Select the language, and then click OK.

To restart your computer, click Restart now.

When done, restart VMM setup and it should complete as expected. Then when you’re all done, you can go back to Control Panel and reset your language settings to the way they were before you started and you’re good to go.

Mark Stanfill | Senior Support Escalation Engineer | Management and Security Division

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