I was having a real problem building several Front-End servers for a customer this week. Try as I might, I couldn’t get the Roles and Features to install. Pat’s Set-Cs2013Features wasn’t cutting it, and neither was doing it the old-fashioned way.

With every attempt it appeared to be doing something for a while but then it failed saying “The source files could not be downloaded” – even though I was using the “-source” switch and pointing to the media. We even tried an alternate ISO without success.

PS C:\> Add-WindowsFeature Web-Server, Web-Scripting-Tools, Web-Windows-Auth, Web-Asp-Net, Web-Log-Libraries, Web-Http-Tracing, Web-Stat-Compression,Web-Default-Doc, Web-ISAPI-Ext, Web-ISAPI-Filter, Web-Http-Errors, Web-Http-Logging, Web-Net-Ext, Web-Client-Auth, Web-Filtering, Web-Mgmt-Console, MSMQ-Server, MSMQ-Directory -Source c:\windows\sxs 

Add-WindowsFeature : The request to add or remove features on the specified server failed.
Installation of one or more roles, role services, or features failed.
The source files could not be downloaded.
Use the "source" option to specify the location of the files that are required to restore the feature. For more information on specifying a source location, see http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=243077. Error: 0x800f0906
At line:1 char:1 
+ Add-WindowsFeature Web-Server, Web-Scripting-Tools, Web-Windows-Auth, Web-Asp-Ne ... 
+ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 
+ CategoryInfo          : InvalidOperation: (@{Vhd=; Credent...Name=localhost}:PSObject) [Install-WindowsFeature], Exception 
+ FullyQualifiedErrorId : DISMAPI_Error__Cbs_Download_Failure,Microsoft.Windows.ServerManager.Commands.AddWindowsFeatureCommand 

Success Restart Needed Exit Code      Feature Result 
------- -------------- ---------      -------------- 
False   No             Failed         {}  
 

The Fix

Uninstall KB2769166 – “An update is available to update the digital signature on the files that are produced by Microsoft in Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012”.

Thanks Aaron!!

Footnote: I wasn’t able to dupe this in my Lab. The KB above is provided by Windows update, so it may pertain to the original media – I couldn’t get it onto my new machine to test against. It may also be relevant that the machines in question had no Internet access.