Error code: 1603 (0x643) – SharePoint 2013 virtual machine

As you know I own DELL 6430 which is really powerful machine. With old laptop I have to use external SSD disk to put there my Virtual machines, which has been virtualized with VMware workstation, to avoid performance issues with my SharePoint virtual machines.  Now I try to run my SharePoint virtual machine on the same hard drive as system. It could be best solution as there’s no need to carry additional external drive. Let’s see.

Unfortunately I don’t have WMware license for new laptop, so I have to use Hyper-V. Thanks thanks to my  BizSpark membership I can use Windows 8.1, which give us hypervisor for free.

BTW. I have write a post why you should spend some money to use VMware workstation instead of Hyper-V. When you compare both you will see why VMware is mature product and Microsoft must learn a few things…

Anyway I’ve decided to create my SharePoint 2013 virtual machine with Windows 2012 as main system. And everything was running well: system installation, AD, SQL server, etc. But when time has come and I’ve stared SharePoint 2013 installation I always get an error message at the end of installation process: “SharePoint Server 2013 encountered an error during setup”. In the installation log I found an entry:

“Failed to install the product: c:\global\oserver.msi error code: 1603(0x643) error when installing SharePoint 2013”. There’s no too many solutions of the problem. One of the most popular is to edit msi file, you can find details here. From my point of view it’s not a solution.

I’ve tried many solutions, but in my cases the best was the simplest. I didn’t install ANY UPDATES with Windows update and in your virtual machine use just ONE virtual processor!  I mean that I just install system, SQL Server 2012 with integrated service pack 1 and SharePoint Prerequisites. And that’s all!. After that SharePoint has been installed without any problems, just like workflow manager. After complete configuration I’ve run Windows update and installed all patches, but everything is running well. And also I’ve added more processors.  And I have no idea what’s the problem 🙂 .