.NET 3.5 (NetFx3) Installation Fails With Error 3017 And HRESULT 80070BC9 on Server 2012 R2

Recently, when rebuilding my System Center Configuration Manager 2012 lab, I ran into an issue.  I was preinstalling SQL Server 2012 and hit a snag.

It seems that for whatever reason the SQL installer could not install the .NET 3.5 framework. Thinking this would be a simple fix I opened up PowerShell, fired off a quick Install-WindowsFeature and… it also failed.  Puzzled I headed to the Internet.  As it turns out this was a common problem and quite a few others suggested using DISM in online mode to install the feature either by pointing direct to the source media

Dism /online /enable-feature /featurename:NetFx3 /All /Source:D:\sources\sxs /LimitAccess

or by obtaining the feature from windows update

Dism /online /enable-feature /featurename:NetFx3 /All

Neither worked.  Both returned the error 3017, which basically means “something broke, you need to restart to roll back the installation”.  Examining C:\Windows\Logs\DISM\dism.log revealed the following:

DISM Package Manager: PID=2536 TID=352 Error in operation: (null) (CBS HRESULT=0x80070bc9) - CCbsConUIHandler::Error
DISM Package Manager: PID=2536 TID=2292 Failed finalizing changes. - CDISMPackageManager::Internal_Finalize(hr:0x80070bc9)
DISM Package Manager: PID=2536 TID=2292 Failed processing package changes with session options - CDISMPackageManager::ProcessChangesWithOptions(hr:0x80070bc9)
DISM Package Manager: PID=2536 TID=2292 Failed ProcessChanges. - CPackageManagerCLIHandler::Private_ProcessFeatureChange(hr:0x80070bc9)
DISM Package Manager: PID=2536 TID=2292 Failed while processing command enable-feature. - CPackageManagerCLIHandler::ExecuteCmdLine(hr:0x80070bc9)
DISM Package Manager: PID=2536 TID=2292 Further logs for online package and feature related operations can be found at %WINDIR%\logs\CBS\cbs.log - CPackageManagerCLIHandler::ExecuteCmdLine
DISM.EXE: DISM Package Manager processed the command line but failed. HRESULT=80070BC9

While not terribly helpful the DISM log tells us where we can get more information.  The cbs.log showed:

Info CSI 000000a7 Begin executing advanced installer phase 34 (0x00000022) index 246 (0x00000000000000f6) (sequence 278)
     Old component: [l:0]""
     New component: [ml:276{138},l:274{137}]"WWF-PerfCnt_ini, Culture=neutral, Version=6.3.9600.16384, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35, ProcessorArchitecture=x86, versionScope=NonSxS"
     Install mode: install
     Installer ID: {d82eedee-854e-4f9a-b458-ae1bc62a0e6b}
     Installer name: [16]"LodCtr Installer"
Info CSI 000000a8 Performing 1 operations; 1 are not lock/unlock and follow:
     (0) LockComponentPath (10): flags: 0 comp: {l:16 b:547843cbc942cf0124030000e4088408} pathid: {l:16 b:547843cbc942cf0125030000e4088408} path: [l:184{92}]"\SystemRoot\WinSxS\x86_wwf-perfcnt_ini_31bf3856ad364e35_6.3.9600.16384_none_086429b116eaedfd" pid: 8e4 starttime: 130396348381515426 (0x01cf42c9b949cea2)
Error CSI 00000002@2014/3/18:16:47:48.324 (F) Logged @2014/3/18:16:47:48.324 : [ml:242{121},l:240{120}]"RegQueryValue_ServiceFirstCounter("SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services","Windows Workflow Foundation 3.0.0.0") fails (2,0)"
[gle=0x80004005]
Error CSI 00000003@2014/3/18:16:47:48.324 (F) Logged @2014/3/18:16:47:48.324 : [ml:354{177},l:352{176}]"Extract actual INI path "C:\Windows\inf\Windows Workflow Foundation 3.0.0.0\PerfCounters.ini" from "C:\Windows\inf\Windows Workflow Foundation 3.0.0.0000\PerfCounters_D.ini"."
[gle=0x80004005]
Error CSI 00000004@2014/3/18:16:47:48.324 (F) Logged @2014/3/18:16:47:48.324 : [ml:354{177},l:352{176}]"Extract actual INI path "C:\Windows\inf\Windows Workflow Foundation 3.0.0.0\PerfCounters.ini" from "C:\Windows\inf\Windows Workflow Foundation 3.0.0.0409\PerfCounters_D.ini"."
[gle=0x80004005]
Error CSI 00000005@2014/3/18:16:47:48.340 (F) CMIADAPTER: Inner Error Message from AI HRESULT = HRESULT_FROM_WIN32(1010)
[
[44]"The configuration registry key is invalid.
"
]
[gle=0x80004005]
Error CSI 00000006@2014/3/18:16:47:48.340 (F) CMIADAPTER: AI failed. HRESULT = HRESULT_FROM_WIN32(1010)
...

Checking the registry key mentioned in the error revealed that the key was related to performance counters. A little more research led me to the lodctr.exe tool, and running

lodctr.exe /R

performed a rebuild of the performance counters. After rebuilding the performance counters installing the .Net 3.5 framework feature with DISM succeeded.