You can get error 1606 under various circumstances. One person I know was encountering the error when installing “Creating Keepsakes - Scrapbook Designer”, a Scrapbook application, but this error can pop up at other times as well. For example, you may encounter this error if you try to install or uninstall Norton AntiVirus 2003. Sometimes the path and location is given in the error message, which may point to one of several different possible paths, such as C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Desktop, or C:\My Documents\My Pictures.
Microsoft’s KB article 315352 mentions that this error occurs if you upgrade from Windows 98 SE or Windows Me to Windows XP, or Windows XP SP1. However, variations of this error are also known to exist when you upgrade from Windows 98 to Windows 2000. Here’s a step-by-step solution that seems to work.
1. Click on Start, Run and then type REGEDIT.EXE to start the Registry Editor.
2. Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\User Shell Folders.
3. Double-click the Common Administrative Tools Value Name and set the data value to %ALLUSERSPROFILE%\Start Menu\Programs\Administrative Tools.
4. Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders. Notice that this path is different than the path in step 2. This is “Shell Folders”, in step 2 you went to “User Shell Folders”.
5. Double-click the Common Administrative Tools Value name and verify that the Value data is set to the %ALLUSERSPROFILE%\Start Menu\Programs\Administrative Tools.
6. Close the Registry Editor.
7. Restart your computer.
