"Silent" 1603 Error ONLY When Installing For "All Users"

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jtwine
Posts: 12
Joined: Mon Sep 14, 2015 9:39 am

"Silent" 1603 Error ONLY When Installing For "All Users"

Postby jtwine » Wed Jul 26, 2017 10:04 am

So I am 99% sure that the underlying problem has something to do with my I.T. department and changes that have been made, but the end result of this problem is this: Installs fail when they are run for All Users, but succeed just fine when run for just the Current User.

When the error is encountered, no error details are shown, just a message box with the word "Error" in it, and nothing else. You have to go spelunking in the Event Log to actually find any error information. That is more what this report is about - it would be nice to be able to have a little more detail than just "Error" when a failure occurs. An image of an example is attached.

The event log detail is:
Windows Installer installed the product. Product Name: xxxxxx. Product Version: 4.5.17.720. Product Language: 1033. Manufacturer: xxxx.. Installation success or error status: 1603.


Now, I searched for 1603 and none of the articles really apply because since the only difference is All Users vs. Current User. Windows settings are the same, TEMP directory is the same, everything about the environment is the same.

MSI logs do not seem to provide anything intelligent, either.

So, one, if we could get a proper error message and not just "Error" that would be great. Second, if there are any additional known or suspected things that would cause failures specific to All Users installs, please let me know.

Thanks!

Peace!
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FrancescoT
Site Admin
Posts: 5360
Joined: Sun Aug 22, 2010 4:28 am

Re: "Silent" 1603 Error ONLY When Installing For "All Users"

Postby FrancescoT » Wed Jul 26, 2017 11:16 am

Dear Jtwine,

that useless error string is directly returned "as it is" by the Windows Installer Engine. Consequently, there isn't so much that we can do in order to prevent this to happen.

For what concerns error 1603, this is generally caused when a file or a component is being held in use by another process.

Due of this probably, your setup is trying to install "something" which is currently used by another running process. This can be a file, a service, a database and so on.

The fact that the error happens when installing for all Users only, it could be related to the different system paths used by the setup process as when installing as PER-MACHINE or PER-USER.

For example; unless there is an error with the script code, "the Document folder" will be resolved as "C:\Users\Public\Documents" when installing as PER-MACHINE, while this will be "C:\Users\<USERNAME>\Documents" when installing as PER-USER. This is just an example, there are many other system paths involved at setup Runtime which are resolved depending on the value of ALLUSERS pre-defined variable.

Consequently, it may be also possible that a component handled by your setup doesn't get addressed to the expected directory or that such component is currently used by another user.

Hope this helps you.

Regards
Francesco Toscano
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