SharePoint 2013 - Failed to install the product: D:globaloserver.msi ErrorCode: 1603(0x643)
Bradley Schacht is a Principal Program Manager on the Microsoft Fabric product team based in Saint Augustine, FL. Bradley is a former consultant, trainer, and has coauthored 6 SQL Server and Power BI books, most recently Learn Microsoft Fabric. As a member of the Microsoft Fabric product team, Bradley works directly with customers to solve some of their most complex data problems and helps shape the future of Microsoft Fabric. Bradley gives back to the community through speaking at events such as the SQLBits, Fabric Community Conference, PASS Community Data Summit, SQL Saturdays, Code Camps, and user groups across the country including locally at the Jacksonville SQL Server User Group (JSSUG). He is a contributor on SQLServerCentral.com and blogs on his personal site, BradleySchacht.com.
I often do my SharePoint setups on virtual machines since I need to build them up and tear them down frequently. Hyper-V is a beauty when it comes to demo environments. A few weeks ago I was doing an install and got an error that was absolutely no help. [error]Microsoft SharePoint Server 2013 encountered an error during setup.[/error] 
Well thanks. That's completely unhelpful. To the installation logs!! 
[error]Error: Failed to install product: D:globaloserver.MSI ErrorCode: 1603(0x643).[/error] Note that your error message may list a different drive letter. Well that's a little better but not 100% helpful. Luckily I've run into this in the past and the fix for me was pretty simple at the time. I mentioned the fact that this was a virtual environment earlier for a reason. I setup my VMs with only a single virtual processor by default when I'm doing configuration. All I needed to do was switch from 1 processor to 2 (or 4, or 6, I've found any even number will work fine in my tests) and everything worked perfectly. After the installation if you want to switch back down to 1 processor everything should continue to function properly. I've seen other people talking about modifying configuration files or registry entries, but if I can fix the issue just by changing the number of virtual processors then I'm going for that! Happy SharePoint adventures!
