Resolving STARTER V5.3 HF1 Installation Errors on Windows

Problem Overview

Siemens STARTER (SINAMICS Startdrive commissioning tool, pre-TIA) is the field-proven commissioning environment for the SINAMICS drive family (SINAMICS G110, G120/G120C, G120D, S110, S120, S150, MV) on PROFIBUS and PROFINET. STARTER V5.3 HF1 is the final standalone release before the product line was consolidated into Startdrive inside TIA Portal.

Engineering workstations fail to install STARTER V5.3 HF1 in three characteristic patterns:

1. Re-install loop: An initial install works, the program is launched once, then a subsequent launch refuses to enumerate the connected drives (e.g. SINAMICS G120) and the user is forced to reinstall.
2. Cross-version corruption: Reinstalling STARTER V5.1, downgrading to V4.5, or installing multiple drive support packages (SSP) on top of each other produces MSI/InstallShield rollback errors.
3. Hard fail during setup: SETUP.EXE aborts mid-transaction, MSI error 1719, 1603, or 1911 is reported, and the working directory is left with partial InstData, SSP_*, and HELP folders that block the next attempt.

These failures are not application bugs; they are the typical surface symptoms of a corrupted Windows Installer database, conflicting Microsoft Office 64-bit registration, locale-mismatched ZIP attributes, or antivirus quarantine of the unzipped InstData tree.

Affected Versions and Environment

Root Cause Catalog

Mapping observed errors to underlying causes lets you skip the random-Google-search phase and go directly to the corrective action.

Pre-Installation Preparation

Perform every step below before the first SETUP.EXE run. Skipping one is the most common reason for a second failed install.

1. Uninstall Microsoft Office x64 (recommended action). If the workstation has any 64-bit Office build (Office 2010 64-bit, 365 64-bit, Volume License x64), uninstall it completely using Microsoft SaRA or the SetupProd_OffScrub.exe tool. Install the 32-bit (x86) edition of Office instead. If Office is not business-critical on the engineering workstation, uninstall it outright.
2. Set Windows locale to English (United States).
   • Control Panel → Clock and Region → Region → Administrative
   • Set Current system locale = English (United States).
   • Click Change system locale… → tick Beta: Use Unicode UTF-8 for worldwide language support OFF (this is the option that breaks STARTER's type library registration).
   • Reboot.
3. Download all three STARTER V5.3 HF1 ZIPs from the Siemens Industry Online Support entry 76799481. The bundle ships in three archives (Vol_1, Vol_2, Vol_3) plus an SSP volume. Do not run any .exe until all four archives are present on disk.
4. Unblock every archive before extraction. In Windows Explorer, right-click each ZIP → Properties → check Unblock → Apply. Or from an elevated PowerShell:

   Get-ChildItem .\STARTER_V53_HF1*.zip | Unblock-File
   Get-ChildItem .\SSP*.zip | Unblock-File

5. Extract to a path with no spaces. Use a short root, e.g. C:\SW\STARTER. The full path must contain no spaces; the InstallShield shell silently mis-parses MSI Property= values that contain whitespace.
6. Disable real-time AV. Microsoft Defender, CrowdStrike, SentinelOne, Trend Micro, and Symantec Endpoint Protection all quarantine InstData\setup.exe executables and the SSP_G110_G120 sub-folder. Pause real-time protection, or add the extraction root to the AV allow-list.
7. Set compatibility flags on the bootstrapper. Right-click SETUP.EXE → Properties → Compatibility → Run this program as administrator → Apply.

Step-by-Step Installation Procedure

1. Confirm the extracted layout matches the expected structure. After unpacking, the common file folder must contain:

   \CommonFileFolder\01_Readme\
   \CommonFileFolder\HELP\
   \CommonFileFolder\InstData\
   \CommonFileFolder\SSP_BT\
   \CommonFileFolder\SSP_DCM\
   \CommonFileFolder\SSP_FAMILY\
   \CommonFileFolder\SSP_G110_G120\
   \CommonFileFolder\SSP_HELP\
   \CommonFileFolder\SSP_MV\
   \CommonFileFolder\SSP_SIMOTION_INTEGRATED\
   \CommonFileFolder\SSP_SINUMERIK_INTEGRATED\
   \CommonFileFolder\Unsupported Tools\

   If any of these folders is missing, the corresponding ZIP volume did not extract successfully — repeat the unblock + extract cycle.
2. Open an elevated Command Prompt, cd to the root, and launch the installer explicitly:

   cd C:\SW\STARTER\CommonFileFolder
   setup.exe /L*vx C:\SW\STARTER_INSTALL.log

   The verbose MSI log is the single most important artifact. If the install fails, this log is what Siemens support will request first.
3. Accept the license dialog and choose Complete (not Custom). Custom mode allows you to skip the SSP_G110_G120 package, which is the cause of STARTER launches but no drives are detected.
4. Wait for the install to reach Configuring ODBC data sources. This step is where the Microsoft Installer Service is invoked and where Office 64-bit conflicts surface as MSI 1719.
5. If a dialog reports a non-fatal warning during install, do not click OK and continue. Click Cancel, capture a screenshot, abort, and proceed to Resolving Common Installation Errors below.
6. On success, the installer reports Installation successfully completed. Close the dialog and reboot before first launch.

Resolving Common Installation Errors

For Windows Installer issues outside the STARTER-specific surface, the Microsoft Visual Studio installation troubleshooting guide applies the same clean Installer folder → rerun bootstrapper pattern that works for any InstallShield-shelled product.

Clean Uninstall and Reinstall Procedure

If the install fails twice on the same machine, the partial state in %ProgramFiles(x86)%\Siemens and the HKLM\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Siemens registry branch will block every subsequent attempt. Use the procedure below before trying again.

1. Standard uninstall:

   wmic product where "name like 'Siemens%%' and vendor like 'Siemens%%'" call uninstall /nointeractive

   Then run the Programs and Features Control Panel applet and remove any remaining STARTER, SIMOTION SCOUT, DRIVE ES, or SINUMERIK Integrate entries.
2. Remove residual folders:

   rmdir /S /Q "%ProgramFiles(x86)%\Siemens"
   rmdir /S /Q "%ProgramData%\Siemens"
   rmdir /S /Q "%LOCALAPPDATA%\Siemens\Automation"

3. Strip the registry: open regedit as Administrator and remove:
   • HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Siemens
   • HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Siemens
   • All subkeys under ...\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall whose DisplayName contains STARTER or SINAMICS.
4. Reset the Windows Installer:

   net stop msiserver
   msiexec /unregister
   msiexec /regserver
   net start msiserver

5. Clear %TEMP% and reboot.
6. Re-attempt the install from a freshly downloaded set of ZIPs, with locale and Office x86 status confirmed.

Alternative Deployment: VirtualBox Workaround

When the engineering workstation's Windows install is too corrupted to remediate in place, deploy STARTER inside an Oracle VirtualBox VM. This pattern is widely used for SINAMICS lab benches and is the most reliable way to get a working STARTER instance on a non-Engineering laptop.

1. Create a Windows 10 (or Windows 7) VM, 4 vCPU, 8 GB RAM, 80 GB dynamic disk.
2. Set the VM's region and language to English (United States) during Windows setup.
3. Do not install any version of Microsoft Office inside the VM.
4. Install VirtualBox Guest Additions and re-enable bridged networking if the VM needs to see real PROFINET/ETHERNETIP gateways.
5. Apply the pre-installation checklist from above, then run the STARTER V5.3 HF1 setup.
6. Take a snapshot named STARTER_V53_HF1_BASELINE. This becomes your restore point for any future install corruption.

Verification Procedure

After install, perform the following checks to confirm a healthy state.

1. Process start: launch STARTER from Start → Siemens Automation → STARTER. The splash screen should display STARTER V5.3 + SPx + HFx matching the downloaded bundle.
2. Component registration: confirm the COM library by running dcomcnfg and verifying the Starter.DriveFrame application appears under DCOM Config.
3. ODBC sources: open ODBC Data Sources (32-bit) and confirm the SINAMICS system DSN exists.
4. Drive discovery: connect a SINAMICS G120 (or any node on PROFIBUS/PROFINET), go online, and verify the drive appears in the project tree. If it does not, repeat InstData\SSP_G110_G120\Setup.exe.
5. License check: Help → About should report the expected Drive ES version (typically V5.5 or later) and the STARTER build.
6. Cold-reboot test: reboot the workstation and re-launch STARTER. The project must open with the previously configured online connection intact — this is the precise failure mode the original poster was reporting.

Escalation: Creating a Siemens Support Request

If all of the above has been applied and STARTER still fails, escalate via the Siemens Industry Online Support portal. The agent will require:

1. The full verbose MSI log from step 2 of the install procedure (setup.exe /L*vx).
2. The Windows installer event log: eventvwr.msc → Windows Logs → Application filtered to source MsiInstaller, exported as .evtx.
3. The MSInfo32 report: msinfo32 /report C:\MSINFO32.NFO.
4. The STARTER installation log directory, typically %LOCALAPPDATA%\Siemens\Automation\STARTER\Log and the Windows %TEMP%\Siemens directory.
5. Screenshots of any in-flight error dialogs (do not click them away).

Attach all artifacts to a support request at the Siemens Industry Online Support portal and reference the STARTER V5.3 HF1 entry (Support entry 76799481). The supporting error log bundle for the original symptom is published as Siemens Support entry 76799493; match the log signatures before submitting to avoid duplicate triage.