With a lot of upgrades happening now that GP 2013 SP1 is out I've seen an uptick in this issue being reported.  This issue can happen while upgrading to GP 2010 or GP 2013.  The situation you will see is that Utilities is crashing while it is upgrading the DYNAMICS database.  If you watch you'll notice that it is crashing when it lists the syExcelReports part of the upgrade running.

Here are 3 different scenarios that I have seen cause this problem starting with the most common.

  1. The ODBC connection that you are connecting over is using the 'SQL Native Client' driver.  You need to use an ODBC connection that is using the 'SQL Native Client 10' driver.  GP 2013 will setup an ODBC connection using this driver when you do the installation, but if you have an ODBC connection from a previous install of GP it may be defaulting to this older driver.  When you launch Utilities see if there are multiple drivers available and select the 2013 (newest) driver.
  2. You are running out of space on your C:\ drive, or the drive where your SQL databases are hosted.
  3. You do not have the data files for the DYNAMICS database set for Auto-Growth.  You can go into SQL Mgmt Studio, Right-Click the DYNAMICS database, Properties > Files.  Make sure Auto-Growth is enabled on both the .mdf and .ldf files.

Number 1 is the most likely issue, but I have seen all 3 of these cause this specific problem.  If you're still encountering a crash while running utilities after checking the above items you should open a case with the support team.