Exit code 1603 deploying MSI file

[doug]

1603 is a generic failure error (ERROR_INSTALL_FAILURE). It could mean a few different things. In no particular order…

1. If you’re deploying something like Adobe Flash, a web browser open on the target machine during installation could cause this. If you determine that this is the problem, you could use the “Actions > Services / Processes > Kill specific running process” action in BatchPatch to close all browsers on targets before deploying.

2. Permissions problem:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/834484

http://www.instant-registry-fixes.org/fix-windows-installer-error-1603/

3. You’re trying to deploy a version that isn’t deployable (is it a web installer instead of a full installer?) You can usually tell just by the size of the installer – web installers are typically less than 1MB while full installers are larger.

4. In the case of an Adobe product like Flash, there might be a problem uninstalling the previous version of Flash, which is preventing the new version from installing.

Here is a good article on 1603: http://www.msigeek.com/715/how-to-troubleshoot-the-error-1603-fatal-error-during-installation

Enabling logging is usually a good way to track down the problem: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/223300

-Doug

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