Bitdefender Endpoint Security fails to install on Windows Server 2016

Issue

Bitdefender Endpoint Security Tools installation fails on Windows Server 2016 with the following error:

Installation failed!
Bitdefender Endpoint Security Tools cannot be successfully installed.

I have also noticed that installation gets stuck on the Starting Services step. Looking into Windows Services mmc, it seems that the installer is trying to start “Bitdefender Endpoint Security Service”, but the service never starts and installation eventually fails…

Resolution

All usual tricks, including re-installing, repairing, rebooting, etc. didn't help. I opened a ticket with Bitdefender Enterprise support and their first suggestion was cleaning the install using their Uninstall Tool (cmd command: BEST_uninstallTool.exe /bdparams /bruteForce) and then trying to re-install. Unfortunately, this didn't make any difference. They also suggested trying to install a basic package without any optional modules, but this didn't help either.

Next step was a remote support session with Bitdefender support, where after going through the same steps as I did before, they eventually confirmed that this was a known issue with Bitdefender client installation on certain versions of Windows Server and developers were working on a proper resolution. In a meantime, the workaround was as follows:

• Completely remove the failed Bitdefender installation using the above Uninstall Tool and reboot the PC.
• Download an older version of Bitdefender Endpoint Security package. v6.6.16.226 can be downloaded from here.
• Place the downloaded epskit_x64.exe file in the same folder with installer.xml that comes with a proper installation package downloaded from your company's GravityZone portal.
• Run the installation. This time installation succeeded, but the agent was still showing errors about not being able to communicate with Bitdefender servers. A quick reboot fixed this.
• Let the agent update to the latest version. In my case it was v6.6.21.304.
• Happy days!

Kudos to Bitdefender support, despite a bit of back and forth at the beginning, at the end the issue was resolved pretty effectively.

November 2020
Windows Server 2016
Bitdefender Endpoint Security Tools v6.6.21.304