Literally You face such Error 1603, that is occurred during the installation and generated by Windows Installer engine. Today we are sharing the simple and straight article to troubleshoot Error 1603 written by our fellow MVP Vijay Raj.

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.

Known Solutions:

The following solutions have resolved this error in the majority of cases:

1. Make sure short file name creation is enabled on the target machine. You can check to ensure that the target machine does not have short file name creation disabled by navigating to the following registry entry:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\FileSystem

Make sure the value “NtfsDisable8dot3NameCreation” is equal to 0. This indicates that short file name creation is enabled. A value of 1 indicates that this functionality is disabled. You should change the value to 0. After modifying this value, the target machine should be rebooted before attempting to launch the setup again.

Note: If the target machine should normally have short file name creation disabled, it can be disabled after the install completes by resetting “NtfsDisable8dot3NameCreation” to 1 and rebooting.

2. To ensure that the Windows Installer Service is properly installed and configured, it is recommended that users install the file InstmsiA.exe on Windows 95/98/Me or InstmsiW.exe on Win NT systems. These files are shipped with your InstallShield product and are located in the following location: <Product Path>\Redist\Language Independent\i386. If the service is installed, to know the status of the service exection, you could also go to services.msc in the command prompt, check the status of the Windows Installer Service. “Stopping and restarting it can help”

3. Empty all temporary folders. The specific temporary folders for a machine can be determined by accessing the DOS prompt and typing set. Note the values listed for TEMP and TMP, and delete all files in those locations.

4. Make sure no other applications, including utilities such as virus scanners, are running in the background. Close all running applications and utilities, and launch the installation again.

5. If this error occurs during un-installation, use the Microsoft Windows Installer CleanUp utility to uninstall the installation. Once the installation has been successfully un-installed, you can then debug the project to determine what caused the original error.

For full detailed article and if you have specific questions, or requests, visit at How to troubleshoot the error 1603 “Fatal Error During Installation”?