Coldfusion 2016 Install on Windows 2016: "Unable to execute the desired program."

[jmaitino]

I am trying to install Adobe Cold Fusion 2016 onto a Microsoft Windows 2016  Server Standard Edition running on a , and I am getting the following error after I run the install executable:

Install Anywhere
Unable to execute the desired program.
Please get another copy of the installer and try again.

I have double checked, and I have downloaded the correct copy.   I also added the digital certificate on the executable into Trust Publishers, thinking that was the issue.

[Dave Watts]

Make sure you're running the installer as administrator. You might also need to manually install whatever Visual C++ runtime InstallAnywhere needs.

It's actually fairly easy to manually install CF on any version of Windows if you can install it on some other copy of Windows first! There isn't all that much that connects CF and Windows. So, you could just zip up the c:\coldfusion2016 directory or whatever you named it, extract a registry snippet containing the appropriate services entries, copy all that to a new machine and you'd be all set. I don't really recommend this approach for people who aren't a bit foolish like me, but it does work.

Dave Watts, Fig Leaf Software