Symptom

The problem presents itself when trying to install the full BarTender Suite and SQL Server as part of the BarTender installation. You may encounter the following error, "BarTender was unable to install Microsoft SQL Express..."

If you proceed to manually install SQL Server Express using the instructions here, you will either see the SQL Server installer go unresponsive or get the error message, "Attempted to perform an unauthorized operation..."

Environment

BarTender 2019 and later

Windows 10 Version 20H2

Fix/Answer

This is a known issue when running Windows 10 version 20H2 and installing SQL Server Express 2014. You can find more information on Microsoft's support site: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/answers/questions/148323/windows-10-version-20h2-install-error-code-0x84bb0.html.

The workaround that is provided in this post is to download and install the latest Microsoft Edge Standalone version from Microsoft's website: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/edge/business/download. It will ask you what build to select for Edge. Select version "Stable 87", build "87.0.664.47", and the system platform that you are running. After the Edge Standalone installer finishes, run the BarTender installer again, and it should complete normally.

Note: This appears to be an issue with Microsoft Edge and the installation of Microsoft SQL Server. At the moment, we don't have specific information as to what specifically is causing this issue. This doesn't seem to be an issue with BarTender.