Blackberry link fails to install: Error 1920 Rim Tunnel Service

When trying to install or upgrade the Blackberry Link software on Server 2008 R2, it may fail with:

Blackberry Link Installer Information

Error 1920.Service Blackberry Link Communication manager (Rim Tunnel Service) failed to start.  Verify that you have sufficient privileges to start system services.

Starting the service manually logs the following errors:

A timeout was reached (nnnnn milliseconds) while waiting for the Blackberry Link

communication Manager service to connect

and

The Blackberry Link Communication Manager service failed to start due to the following error: The service did not respond to the start or control request in a timely fashion.

Rebooting, run as admin, uninstall the old version, removing files, and old registry keys fail to resolve.

Checking the service, we can see that it executes “%PROGRAMFILESX86%\Research in Motion\Tunnel Manager\tunmgr.exe” with a switch of service. 

Attempting to execute this program interactively provides the following error:

tunmgr.exe – System Error

The program can’t start because Wlanapi.dll is missing from your computer.  Try reinstalling the program to fix this problem

To resolve this, install the Wireless Lan Service Feature in Service Manager

Alternatively you can install this using Powershell using the following commands:

Import-Module ServerManager

Add-WindowsFeature Wireless-Networking

The Blackberry Link should now install.