.Net Framework 3.0/3.5 Installation Failure

Clayton Osborn — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 08:48:00 GMT

Abstract:

I came across a very tricky to find installation problem on my laptop when attempting to install the .Net Framework 3.5. In the end, after going down many wrong roads that looked very right, it turned out to be a Registry Key deep in the registry that had permissions incorrectly assigned to the ASP.NET user and only the ASP.NET user.

The .Net Framework 3.5 installation would crash, resulting in an error log file containing the following:

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[02/17/08,09:06:00] Microsoft .NET Framework 3.0a: [2] Error: Installation failed for component Microsoft .NET Framework 3.0a. MSI returned error code 1603
[02/17/08,09:07:07] WapUI: [2] DepCheck indicates Microsoft .NET Framework 3.0a is not installed.
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Running the .Net Framework 3.0 installation would also crash, resulting in the following error:

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[02/17/08,09:58:38] Windows Communication Foundation: [2] Error: Installation failed for component Windows Communication Foundation. MSI returned error code 1603
[02/17/08,09:59:06] WapUI: [2] DepCheck indicates Windows Communication Foundation is not installed.
[02/17/08,09:59:06] WapUI: [2] DepCheck indicates Microsoft .NET Framework 3.0 was not attempted to be installed.
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To find the problem, after many failled attempts and uninstalling/reinstalling many different things, I found instructions on how to create a Windows Installer verbose logfile, then traced through it to find the exact place the installation was failing.

First thing need was to set the Windows Installer into verbose mode, by executing the following two commands from the command prompt to get the proper registry entries in place:

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reg add "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Installer" /v Debug /t REG_DWORD /d 7 /f<

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.Net Framework 3.0/3.5 Installation Failure