Best practice when upgrading an existing Counterpoint installation to V8.6.5 (or later)

Certain issues have been reported in the field when upgrading an existing Counterpoint installation to Version 8.6.5 or later. These issues may occur without any error messages being generated during the installation process. In affected environments, the problem is typically discovered when attempting to register a station. Investigation has revealed that the installation did not successfully create the database, and the companies.ini file was not populated as expected. As a result, station registration cannot be completed successfully.

Root cause analysis has identified two primary conditions that may contribute to installation failures:

The required PowerShell module is not present or is at an unsupported version level. The module must be updated or manually installed before running Setup.exe.
Security-related restrictions, including antivirus (AV) software, endpoint protection policies, or failure to launch Setup.exe with administrative privileges, may prevent installation tasks from completing successfully.

Verification of PowerShell prerequisites and ensuring the installer is executed with elevated permissions are recommended prior to performing the upgrade or installation.

Step 1: Update Counterpoint on server

SQL Server PowerShell Module Update - It is strongly recommended to install Microsoft SQL Server on a different server from the Counterpoint server. When doing so, the SQL Server Powershell Module is required on the Counterpoint server to configure or setup the databases. For more information about the SQL Server PowerShell Module, refer to Install SQL Server PowerShell module.

We’ve noticed that on certain installations using the new installer script, the system may automatically reboot during the process. If your system restarts unexpectedly while the installer is running, please rerun the script after the reboot to complete the product installation.

To ensure a smooth and successful installation, please make sure no other installations or updates (such as Adobe updates or MSI-based setups) are running on your system before starting the installer. We recommend closing all applications, verifying that no installation processes are in progress, ensuring a stable network connection, and running the installer with administrative privileges. Following these best practices will help prevent conflicts and installation failures.