Salt Minions on Windows revert to older version immediately after upgrade

Products

• VCF Automation

Issue/Introduction

• When attempting to upgrade Salt Minions on Windows (e.g., from version 3006.7 to 3006.15 or 3006.23), the minions revert to the older version immediately after the upgrade attempt.

• This behavior also occurs during fresh installations (uninstalling the old version followed by reinstalling the new version).

• The new Salt Minion configuration files are automatically converted to .bak files, and the previous configuration files are restored.

• Initial troubleshooting of the installer logs may show the following error: vcredist_x64_2022 failed to install ErrorCode: 1638. However, manually installing the latest Microsoft Visual C++ runtime does not resolve the rollback behavior.
  
  C:\ProgramData\Salt Project\Salt\var\log\salt\minion

C:\ProgramData\Salt Project\Salt\var\log\salt\minion.log

Environment

 

• VCF Automation (SaltStack)

• Salt Minion for Windows (versions 3006.7, 3006.15, 3006.23)

 

Cause

An active enforcement policy in a third-party patch management or configuration management tool (such as Kace by Quest Software, SCCM, Intune, or Group Policy) is reverting the Salt Minion to a previously deployed version. 

After the minion is upgraded, the tool detects a configuration drift from its defined baseline and automatically restores the older binaries and configuration files.

Resolution

To successfully upgrade Salt Minions and prevent version rollbacks, perform the following steps:

1. Check the environment for any active automation, patch management, or configuration management tools (e.g., Quest KACE, SCCM, Intune, Group Policy) that may be enforcing legacy software versions.

2. Disable or update the specific deployment job, task, or policy responsible for enforcing the older Salt Minion version (e.g., 3006.7) before attempting to upgrade the fleet.

3. Once the active installation/enforcement job is disabled in the third-party tool, proceed with upgrading the Salt Minions to the desired version (e.g., 3006.23). The minions should now upgrade successfully and remain stable without rolling back.