Installation Error: "Some products failed to install" Fix

WARNING: TRY THIS FIX AT YOUR OWN RISK! THIS SHOULD NOT HAVE ANY SIDE EFFECTS BUT WE ARE NOT RESPONSIBLE IF ANY SIDE EFFECTS ARISE!

It has come to my attention that some people are experiencing installation errors when trying to download Inventor 2017 onto their personal computers that state "Some products failed to install".

I have come across a potential solution to this problem. It stems from the Inventor installation software attempting to install files that are necessary to use Inventor, but that your computer already has an updated version of installed. They are called "Microsoft Visual C++ 20xx Redistributable" files. And since Inventor is unable to install a previous version of a file if your computer already has an updated version, it produces an error.

To find out which files are causing the problem, open the installation log that can be found on the same window that states "Some products failed to install".

Look through the log and take note of which distributable files caused an error. The should have the words "error", "abort", etc. directly after their name.

Navigate to your control panel and uninstall the distributable files that were causing the error.

Restart your computer and run the Inventor installation software again.

The installation software should now be able to install the necessary files and Inventor should install successfully.

I have found an official Autodesk forum post that outlines the problem and solution. Although the forum post uses an older version of a different Autodesk software, the method should be the same.

* The forum post can be found HERE

* HERE and HERE are two other forum posts with some more information on the procedure

If you are unsure of what to do and would like me to try and fix the problem on your laptop, feel free to stop by my office hours and I can give it a shot!

~Eric, CAD Tutor