I’ve been building out some new servers with Windows Server 2012 R2 to start working on a new Microsoft SQL Server Reference Architecture on Pure Storage and after installing SQL Server 2012 and migrating the databases over to a Pure volume I figured I would run the SQL Server 2012 Best Practices Analyzer to get a report. The system requirements listed on the Microsoft download page indicates that the supported operating systems listed do not include Windows Server 2012 or 2012 R2. I wanted to share how to get this to work on Windows Server 2012 R2 because it required some manual intervention.

Step-by-step instructions:

  1. Install the Microsoft Baseline Configuration Analyzer v2 (BCA) – This will install to C:Program FilesMicrosoft Baseline Configuration Analyzer 2.
  2. Install the Microsoft SQL Server 2012 Best Practices Analyzer (SQL BPA)– This will install to C:WindowsSystem32BestPracticesv1.0ModelsSQL2012BPA.
  3. Navigate to the directory C:WindowsSystem32BestPracticesv1.0Models and right-click the SQL2012BPA folder and make a copy.
  4. Navigate to C:ProgramDataMicrosoftMicrosoft Baseline Configuration Analyzer 2Models and paste the SQL2012BPA folder in this new location.
  5. Start the BCA with Run As Administrator and you will now see the SQL Server 2012 BPA listed in the “Select a product” dropdown.

[UPDATE, February 24, 2014]
Below are a few screenshots of an actual report that I produced from a Windows Server 2012 R2 and SQL Server 2012 instance. In my example the SQL_Server_Instance_Name = PURE1 and then I selected Analyze_SQL_Server_Engine and Analyze_SQL_Server_Setup.

Thanks,
Barkz