Installing Exchange rollup fixes

While I certainly see the value in Windows 2008 UAC (User Access Control), it can be a big pain, too.  Too often, you can try to run a program only to have the program fail for no reason.  I have seen this recently with Exchange 2010 Rollup fixes.  Today while installing E2K10 SP2 RU3, I had an issue where the installer appeared to run, but failed within a minute or two and gave no obvious reason.

The Windows Application Event log had 2 fairly generic errors:

Event 1036
Windows Installer installed an update. Product Name: Microsoft Exchange Server. Product Version: 14.2.247.5. Product Language: 1033. Manufacturer: Microsoft Corporation. Update Name: Update Rollup 3 for Exchange Server 2010 Service Pack 2 (KB2685289) 14.2.309.2. Installation success or error status: 1603.

Event 1024

Product: Microsoft Exchange Server - Update 'Update Rollup 3 for Exchange Server 2010 Service Pack 2 (KB2685289) 14.2.309.2' could not be installed. Error code 1603. Windows Installer can create logs to help troubleshoot issues with installing software packages. Use the following link for instructions on turning on logging support: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=23127

The fix for this, though, is pretty simple.  Open up a command prompt as an administrator and simply run the patch from the command line.  In my case, I just typed:

Exchange2010-KB2685289-x64-en.msp

Then the roll-up installs correctly (and it does take 30-45 minutes to complete).