The Fabric Data Collection Agent is disabled for this deployment for Workflow Manager 1.0 installation and AutoSPInstaller

While I was installing Workflow Manager 1.0 Refresh on my SharePoint 2013 Server, I encountered the following error message:

The Fabric Data Collection Agent is disabled for this deployment.

According to several articles, the issue stems from a modification made to the HOSTS file pointing to the 127.0.0.1  (loopback address) to resolve DNS entries/Urls.

Well, initially, I did not think of checking the HOSTS file because I did not manually modify the HOSTS file myself.

But, after the 2nd failed installation, I decided to double check the HOSTS file to see if there truly was any such entry.

Sure enough, there was such an entry!

Even more interesting, this entry was added as part of the AutoSPInstaller installation process!

127.0.0.1    SharePointServer    #Added by AutoSPInstaller to locally resolve SharePoint URLs back to this server

Once I commented out this line from the HOSTS file, my Workflow Manager 1.0 Refresh installation proceeded successfully!

In order to prevent entries from being added to the HOSTS file by AutoSPInstaller, you can uncheck the "Add URL to HOSTS" checkbox in AutoSPInstaller GUI.