MSMQ Installation on Windows 2008 R2 Fails with 0x80070643 - Fatal Installation Error.

Recently I got a case where the MSMQ Service Installation failed with  0x80070643 - Fatal Installation Error. We reviewed the c:\windows\cbs\cbs.log

The CBS.log file did not have much to go with. It just repeated the same error  0x80070643 - Fatal Installation Error. I cleared the Event Logs and retried installation.

We saw several failures to start DHCP client Service. We found the service set as not started and was disabled. We set the service properties as automatic and started the service. Now when we try to reinstall MSMQ we got the real error message -2147024891 Access Denied Error.

Cause:

The Problem here is that the MSMQ Service run under the Network Service Account. During Installation if we are unable to start the service then the Installation Rolls Back. The Network Service Account permissions were restricted and hence the service was not starting up and thus rolling back the installation every single time.

 

Resolution:

To Resolve this issue add the local network service account in the Administrators group on the local machine. Once the service is installed and startup you can try taking it out of the Admin group then retry restarting the service and see if it works.

This may not work for all installation issues but if definitely something that is easy to try.