Office PP 2013 - Setup bootstrapper has stopped working

I tried the three-step approach to installing Office Pro Plus, to no avail. "Microsoft Bootstrapper has encountered an error." Every time. I even disabled my antivirus during one attempt. How can I get past this? It's very frustrating that a leading suite of programs can be so temperamental about installation.

so, I've noticed that I periodically see this bootstrapper error when trying to install 64bit versions of Visio or Project.

The most recent one I had was yesterday and the 'fix' was as simple as changing the compatibility setting for the setup.exe file to 'Windows 7'.

Can't say this is a 'fix' that will always work but it's something that has worked for me on several occasions recently.

After investigating the issue, we found that in our situation the previously mentioned solutions had no effect. We found that the issue was caused by a Group Policy on our domain that implemented a Software Restriction Policy. The Group Policy was in place to reduce the risk of a ransomware attack by preventing applications from launching from within the APPDATA folder.

If this is the case on your system you should see an entry in the Application Event Logs with Event ID 866 : SoftwareRestrictionPolicies with a description similar to :

Access to C:\Users\***\AppData\Local\Temp\ose00000.exe has been restricted by your Administrator by location with policy rule {******-*****-****-*****-*******} placed on path C:\Users\*****\AppData\Local\\.exe..

Disabling the Group Policy on the server and rebooting did not fix the issue, instead we opened the local Group Policy Editor gpedit.msc (you must be logged on to the PC and a local administrator). Within GPEDIT we went to Computer Configuration-Windows Settings-Security Settings- Software Restriction Policies and Right Clicked on Software Restriction Policies and selected 'Delete Software Restriction Policies'. On one PC there was no Software Restriction Policies but we still got the same error. On this PC we Right Clicked on Software Restriction Policies and selected 'New Software Restriction Policy' and then Right Clicked and selected 'Delete Software Restriction Policies' . We then were able to install MS Office without issue. Please be aware that if the Group Policy is still enabled on your domain, the Software Restriction Policy may be reapplied the next time you reboot.

Some Antivirus/Antimalware solutions also prevent applications from running from the APPDATA folder, so you may wish to temporarily disable your AV solution if this is the case.

I hope this helps others in this situation.

Hi,

I've had the same problem with you. When I install MS Visio 2013, the installation was corrupted at 60% complete. After that I can't install MS OF 2010, 2013 or 2016 because of the bootstraper error, It took me 2 days to fix this.

I've done these following step (I'm using Windows 10 and try to install OFF 2016):

1. Delete AppCompatFlags in the Register, then restart.
2. Delete the %temp% folder, rename the %ProgramData%/Microsoft Help to Microsoft Help.old
3. Boot PC in Clean boot mode.
4. Disable the Print Spooler services. The Windows Installer and Task Schedule services are in automatic mode.
5. Install OFF 2016. The important thing I want to discuss more is: I changed the installation location to another partition. The default location is C:\ProgramFile..., I changed to F:\Program File... If I use the default location, the bootstraper error still occured. After changed the installation location to another partition I could complete the installation without eror.

I don't know why the changed of installation location can fix this problem. May be consider to the permission of the User to the C:\ drive.

Wish this may be usefull for you.

Thanks for this info. I also tried all the steps in the forums and a simple step to remove machine from domain worked.