Exchange 2003 SP2 Install/Update Fails While installing Activesync

This is a direct rip of an article on Jeremyroe.net. Why copy instead of link? Who knows what info will be around, and for how long. :)

While performing a reinstall of Exchange SP2 I was presented with the following Error:

“Setup failed while installing sub-component Exchange ActiveSync with error code 0xC0070643 (please consult the installation logs for a detailed description). You may cancel the installation or try the failed setup again.”

I took a look in the Exchange Server Setup Progress.log and found the following errors:

[10:30:57] Calling MSXML installer with command line: “msiexec /i msxml3.msi /q reboot=”ReallySuppress”"
[10:30:57] Process created … waiting (-1)
[10:30:58] Process has exited with 0×000643
[10:30:58] The command

msiexec /i msxml3.msi /q reboot=”ReallySuppress”

failed, returning error code 1603 (Fatal error during installation.). — ID:31136 — ScCreateProcess (f:\tisp2\admin\src\libs\exsetup\hiddenw1.cxx:1821)
Error code 0XC0070643 (1603): Fatal error during installation.

After a few Google searches I found the following forum Posting Here

In short – MSXML3 is already installed on the Server – The post outlines the following steps.

1.Get a copy of the Windows Installer package for the version of MSXML 3 you have installed.
2.Place a copy inside Exchsrvr\bin
3.Rename the existing msxml3.msi to msxml3.msi.backup
4.Make a copy of the latest version MSXML Windows Installer file and rename it to msxml3.msi. This will leave you with msxml3.msi and msxml3sp?.msi (in my case msxml3sp7.msi).
5.Click Retry on the error and it should continue as planned.
In my case I didn’t show MSXML 3 Installed – I had the following packages:

MSXML 4.0 SP2 (KB927978)
MSXML 4.0 SP2 (KB936181)
MSXML 4.0 SP2 Parser and SDK
MSXML 6.0 Parser (KB33579)

I tried a number of things but eventually came to the conlusion that I did in fact have MSXML 3.0 SP7 installed and it simply did not show in add remove programs. I replaced the MSI with the download from this link:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=28494391-052b-42ff-9674-f752bdca9582&displaylang=en


After that I hit retry on the install and still had no luck – I then gave a reboot and a fresh attempt at the install a try using the updated MSI and it proceeded fine.