My development laptop (asus 750g) recently recommended that I upgrade from windows 8 to 8.1

As a development machine it had SQL Server instances for 2008R2 and 2014 developer editions.

Once the upgrade had completed ALL instances became completely unusable 

Looking in configuration manager I could see that services were missing.

Tried to run a repair - repeatedly failed. 

Actions taken:

ran  sqlcmd -L  all existing instances listed. 

Tried running a repair - failed. Updating permission for C:\WINDOWS\TEMP failed ...

Found that if AV is running the the ScenarioEngine.exe crashes asking to debug with following error line highlighted :

000000005C40FD10 mov dword ptr [5C4BD460h],0

Turning off AntiVirus, Windows Firewall, UAC

Tried running a repair again - first time failed, tried again this time seemed to go through,

Launched SSMS - unable to login, testing using both win auth and sql login

The config manager now showed the service as stopped, the protocol listing for new instance was visible - tried starting service.

the config manager shows it was running,

Seemed to have some affect as whilst having SSMS and Taskmanager open I could see that briefly I could connect to an instance but the service would then stop, after a few milliseconds it would show starting, running, stopped in a under a second - this behaviour repeated for several minutes.

tried a couple of tweaks then

Tried repair, failed, tried uninstall, reinstall - got the No mapping of account names and security ids error

Retested login through SSMS got actively refused error - so following this link

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/sql_protocols/archive/2007/07/19/tcp-provider-no-connection-could-be-made-because-the-target-machine-actively-refused-it.aspx

Back into configuration manager - check protocols - tcpip enabled and amended the IPAII entry as listed under part 4 (b)

Didn't work - so reset back to previous setting.

Thought maybe the service is starting but failing somewhere else, possibly permissions based issues to local drives, so followed link suggestion

http://blog.brankovucinec.com/2015/04/08/mssql-server-not-starting-after-fresh-installation/

TAKEOWN /F <type in the path of the folder that you want to take
access>

ICACLS <type in the path of the folder that you want to take access>
/grant administrators:F

did this for all D, E and F drives

Didn't make any difference.

CURRENT STATUS

Unable to connect to existing 2008R2 instance

Did a complete removal of all SQL Server 2014 components. Turned off all uac, firewall, antivirus.

Setup folders on drives ensuring current user had ownership of folders.

Ran new Installation of SQL 2014 Developer - run as administrator - whilst the install completes - it hasn't completed successfully,

Launch config manager > Goto SQL Server Network Configuration

There are no protocols entry for the newly installed SQL Instance.

SO AS IT STANDS I HAD A SQL 2008R2 DEVELOPER EDITION AND A SQL 2014 DEVELOPER EDITION WORKING PERFECTLY HAPPILY - ALL WORKING TOWARDS MY COMPANY DEMO ON FRIDAY.

BUT

WINDOWS 8.1 UPGRADE - BOOM NOW ALL INSTANCES ARE COMPLETELY UNUSABLE, I'M UNABLE TO INSTALL A NEW INSTANCE. 

30+HOURS AND COUNTING OF BEING UNABLE TO USE MY SQL SERVERS  - THANKS MICROSOFT

Hi,

For your problem, it would be better to post the question at SQL forum:

https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/sqlserver/en-US/home?category=sqlserver

The problem is not the sql or its installer.

The problem is

if antivirus is running when the win 8.1 update occurs - this corrupts user profile.

plus win 8.1 wipes all previous restore points. 

I had to - uninstall antivirus, take it back to win 8 using pc refresh, then install all updates, then install windows 8.1, turn off firewall and uac, then install sql 2008 r2 + sp2, then sql 2014 and finally the antivirus software that I was using previously.