Microsoft Setup Bootstrapper Has Stopped Working

I was trying to install Office 2013 Pro Plus recently and was getting this error message

“Microsoft Setup Bootstrapper has stopped working”

If you put that error message into your favourite search engine there are a variety of suggested solutions, the most popular ones seemed to be.

Use Microsoft Fixit Tools to completely remove Office 2013.

Backup and then delete the AppCompatFlag registry key

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\AppCompatFlags

In my case it wasn’t any of those.

Looking at the application log in event viewer showed what the problem was straight away.

We have a software restriction policy in place that’s used as part of some prevention measures for malware such as Cryptolocker.

In this scenario the options are to either create an exception on the policy or to temporarily stop the Group Policy that applies the restrictions from applying.

It’s also possible some anti-virus could do this too.

Once I’d taken the policy into account Office installed without issue.

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Andy Parkes

Andy Parkes is Technical Director at Coventry based IT support company IBIT Solutions. Formerly, coordinator of AMITPRO and Microsoft Partner Area Lead for 2012-2013. He also isn't a fan of describing himself in the third person.

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