SQL Server 2008 @ Amazon EC2 “Event 17508 File not found”

(Cross-posted here from an 18 March 2010 post on my personal blog at markr.com.)

Ran into an interesting little glitch this afternoon bringing up SQL Server 2008 at Amazon EC2 using one of their packaged instances. I got this error:

Log Name: Application
Source: MSSQLSERVER
Date: 3/17/2010 10:00:14 PM
Event ID: 17058
Task Category: Server
Level: Error
Keywords: Classic
User: N/A
Computer: ip- xxxxxxxx        
Description:
initerrlog: Could not open error log file ''. Operating system error = 3(The system cannot find the path specified.).
Event Xml:
<Event xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/win/2004/08/events/event">
<System>
<Provider Name="MSSQLSERVER" />
<EventID Qualifiers="49152">17058</EventID>
<Level>2</Level>
<Task>2</Task>
<Keywords>0x80000000000000</Keywords>
<TimeCreated SystemTime="2010-03-17T22:00:14.000Z" />
<EventRecordID>1583</EventRecordID>
<Channel>Application</Channel>
<Computer>ip-xxxxx</Computer>
<Security />
</System>
<EventData>
<Data>
</Data>
<Data>3(The system cannot find the path specified.)</Data>
<Binary>A2420000100000000C000000490050002D0030004100460030003300390038004300000000000000</Binary>
</EventData>
</Event>

After a little digging – actually a lot of digging – I discovered this article that says you can get this if the SQL Server machine is also a Windows domain controller. I applied both Workaround 1 and 2 to ALL of the SQLServer* security groups on the domain.