I come from a long history of being a SW user, back to '95 and I always have used admin installs.  It's so much easier when you change hardware and do upgrades as often as I do to simply maintain a admin installation that's fully patched on a fast file server.

Then after complaining for several releases about SW ignoring severe bugs and bringing out new buggier bells and whistles we got SW2005.  For those of you who were there, you know what a disaster it was.  I finally dumped every model I'd created in 2005, went back to 2004 and spoke with my checkbook - no more maintenance.

This year I'm back with 2010, hoping against all hope that they have finally gotten the message and made some advances in stability.  I specified that we get SW2009 because I've long since learned not to use anything lower than SP3 in a production environment.

And OMG, the first thing I run into is nothing but headaches with installations.

The first 48 hours were a total failure because the serial numbers they generated were not valid.  Not even the right format.  Took 48 hrs for them to figure that out and gen new codes.  Of course none of these installs would work until their system updated with the new codes which took another 48 hours.

Of course, no one could say why it was failing so I wasted a ton of time on this.  Then one night after midnight an install from DVD finally went in (on my laptop.)  Joy oh Joy.  This was a 2010 Vista 64bit install.  I have yet to get a 2009 installed and successfully patched.  At this point I figure my learning curve coming up to 2010 being what it is and installs of 2009 being a FAIL I'd just take my chances with 2010 and hope for the best and deal with the bugs as they materialize.

I have since then tried several times to get admin installs to go with zero success.  The closest I came was a successful creation of an admin install w/ service pack, but when I went to actually install it on the client it failed.

I have sent all these log files off to the var, but their tech was out for the end of the week so there's been no progress so far.

I'm wondering how many of you have experienced similar problems.  I'm sure the VAR will come back with 'user error, no one has ever had a problem before' as this seems to be the default canned answer, I'd like to know if that's accurate or not.

How many of you have had any problems with installs, with admin installs and how many of these have been fatal?

Just for the record, hardware is all sound, 2004 runs just fine, no serious issues (a few reproduceable bugs, but I know what not to do to keep it alive.)  Also, I’m enjoying playing with 2010.  I wouldn’t say I’m anywhere even close to converting my entire database as I can still get my work done in ’04 and am reluctant to take an irreversible plunge into SP1 waters, but so far, I like most of what I see in ’10.