This same problem happens to me year after year. It installs and updates just fine the first time. Then when I save my tax return and come back at a later date, it will try to update again, and lo and behold, it produces a 1603 error without fail.
It appears that once installed, it cannot update successfully more than once. I've tried all the measures listed on Intuit's website. Run as admin? Check. Update .NET framework? Check. Disable firewall? Check. Disable anti-virus? Check. Which is a rather ridiculous solution to propose. I mean, if you were writing a piece of malware that couldn't get past anti-virus software, just put up a dialog with an error #1603 and tell the user to disable the anti-virus software. But I digress...
The ONLY thing that works for me is:
- Uninstall Turbo Tax
- Reboot
- Reinstall Turbo Tax and let it update
- Complete and file my tax return
I don't need to make ANY other changes. However, after this has been done, I have to ensure I don't do anything that causes the updater runs again because the updater appears to never work more than once. If I save my tax return and re-open it the next day, the updater will try to run again, and I have to repeat the above steps.
My guess is that TurboTax probably considers it a Microsoft installer issue. However, this is the only program where I experience this problem, and it can't be the only program that uses Microsoft's installer. All others where I do experience an installer issue are fixed with a reboot. TurboTax, for some reason, requires an uninstall and reinstall.
For me, this is the only serious flaw in an otherwise dependable piece of software, so I continue to use it. I really wish Intuit would fix it. Heck, I'd be willing to test it this scenario for them on my computer if it would help fix it.
