Age of Empires 3

Question

I tried to install the first disc of my age of empires 3 gold edition for games for windows live but the install process stops soon after starting and displays this error:

Eror -1603 Fatal error during installation

Consult \indows Installer Help (Msi.chmi or MSDN for more

Is it a disc issue or am I missing pre-requisite software of some sort?

Thank you! (:

Answer 1

Hi! Error -1603 is a general Windows Installer (MSI) failure, so it doesn’t automatically mean the disc is bad, it happens when the installer can’t write to a folder/TEMP, doesn’t have the right permissions, or a security/previous install is blocking it.

Start by right-clicking Setup.exe > Run as administrator, make sure you have full permissions on the install folder, and temporarily disable third-party antivirus/“controlled folder access” while installing.

To tell if it’s a disc/drive problem, try copying the whole DVD to a folder on your PC, if the copy fails or throws read/CRC errors, it points to media/drive. If the copy succeeds, run the installer from the copied folder and install the legacy DirectX End-User Runtimes

Answer 2

I think that 1603 on AoE3 is just MSI chokin on stale GFWL regs or temp gunk not rly ur disc.

try copyin the CD to C:, run setup as admin + pre‑drop the old GFWL redist + wipe %temp% and that’s fixed it.