1603 install errors

[Steve Davy]

I've suddenly started getting fatal 1603 installation errors while trying to install Maya (and 3DS Max) on Windows 10. And by this I mean the installation fails completely during Maya install, not the error message that sometimes appears after it has finished.

Predictably, this error code is completely generic and so far I've found online references to this being because the destination hard drive is full (not the case), or because your Microsoft C++ distributables are corrupt or missing, or because Genuine Autodesk Service is missing... or a bunch of other potential reasons.

Since both the C++ distributables and the Genuine Service are part of the installation it doesn't seem to be anything to do with that.

Has anyone else experienced this and have a fix? I've never encountered this problem before with any Maya installation.