During an MSSQL install against Amazon RDS, the following error was encountered:

10:41:14 DB Type is SQL Server: Yes
10:41:14 Progress status - Creating database on MS SQL Server
10:41:14 ---------- CreateSQLDBGetParams() ----------
10:41:14 ---------- CreateSQLDB1() ----------
10:41:14 DB Type is SQL Server Azure: No
10:41:14 DB Type is SQL Server Azure: No
10:41:15 Error: Cannot create MS SQL DB: Invalid connection string attribute
10:41:15 ---------- OnAbort() ----------
10:41:15 MOVEit Automation Installation Abort.

It transpires that the “connection string attribute” message is a red herring, the root cause here was that the password selected for the moveitautomation account in SQL did not meet the criteria of Amazon RDS SQL.  This error is not correctly logged anywhere else.

Furthermore, because of the point the the install failed at, it left a moveitcentralinstall.ini file on the root of C: which was used for subsequent installations, overriding whatever configuration was entered during the installation.