QuickBooks Pro 2012 install error 1603

Troubleshoot the error 1603 "Fatal Error During Installation"

This error message is displayed by the Microsoft Windows Installer Engine (Wondering whats this? Read here) and is a general error code that indicates a problem occurred during the installation. Read on this article to learn how to sidestep this speed bump. The following is the probable list of known causes for this error to occur:

Short file name creation is disabled on the target machine.
An Install Script custom action is prototyped incorrectly.
A file is locked and cannot be overwritten.
The Microsoft Windows Installer Service is not installed correctly.
The Windows Temp folders are full.
The setup was corrupted after installation and, therefore, fails with this error during un-installation.
An older version of Install Shield Developer is being used.
Print and File sharing is not installed if your application needs it.

Troubleshooting 1603 MSI Error

As discussed, The 1603 error code is mostly returned when any action fails during an installation on Windows, and most commonly it indicates that one of the custom actions in the MSI failed. When we encounter a failed setup with return code 1603, here are the steps that we should follow:

Re-run the setup with verbose logging enabled using steps similar to those that are listed here.

Step 1: Generate a verbose log file named msi*.log in the %temp% directory the next time the setup package is executed. (Click here to know more ways to generate log). Know more about the command-line switches here.

msiexec /i setup.msi /l*v c:\temp\msi.log

Step 2: Open the verbose log in a text editor such as notepad and search for the string “return value 3”. In nearly all cases, this will take us to the section in the verbose log that lists the action that failed that initially caused setup to rollback.

Step 3: Review the contents of the log file immediately above the “return value 3” string to determine which custom action or standard action failed. Depending on which action is failing, We will need to proceed to more detailed debugging from here.

Source: www.msigeek.com December 20, 2016 – 07:58