Can I install SQL 2008R2 on server with TLS1.2 or higher enabled

Question

Hello,

I have a requirement to upgrade SQL 2000 databases. I am thinking to install SQL 2008R2 , restore SQL 2000 backup file on SQL 2008R2, upgrade database ( provided it goes through). If successful, i will upgrade it further to SQL 2016 or SQL 2019, which ever is allowed.

The issue is, my server has TLS 1.2 enabled. I think SQL 2008R2 needs TLS 1.2 disabled at the time of initial installation. Later, once SPs are applied, it can support TLS1.2.

When I try to install SQL 2008R2, I got following messages:

The server was unable to initialize encryption because of a problem with a security library. The security library may be missing. Verify that security.dll exists on the system. TDSSNIClient initialization failed with error 0x139f, status code 0x80. Reason: Unable to initialize SSL support. The group or resource is not in the correct state to perform the requested operation. TDSSNIClient initialization failed with error 0x139f, status code 0x1. Reason: Initialization failed with an infrastructure error. Check for previous errors. The group or resource is not in the correct state to perform the requested operation. Could not start the network library because of an internal error in the network library. To determine the cause, review the errors immediately preceding this one in the error log. SQL Server could not spawn FRunCM thread. Check the SQL Server error log and the Windows event logs for information about possible related problems.

Has anyone come across this issue ?

Answer 1

Windows server 2008 r2, is the lastest o/s that supports sql 2008.

you should just install a supported version of sql server. Then mount the old database files. The mount will upgrade the files.

Answer 2

I don't think that error is related to TLS 1.2. TLS will only start to matter when you try to communicate with SQL Server.

It could be that the OS you are trying to install SQL 2008 R2 is too modern for that version of SQL Server. Then again, I am running SQL 2008 (R1) on Windows 11 without issues.

A more likely reason is simply that the default user profile is corrupted on that machine. The best remedy is to fix that, for instance, by copying a default profile from a different computer. But since you are only going to use your SQL 2008 R2 instance as a stepping stone for your SQL 2000 databases, you could try setting Local Service as the service account to work around the issuie.