Hello Mike,
glad to hear at least some progress :)
By "false positive" do you mean - the setup is executed and shown as successful but on the client it has failed?
I think I have had a similar problem one time, when I tried to install a software which was already installed on the client.
The setup did not have a "update" mechanism and kept failing over and over.
Some points to think about:
- always try on a "clean" client - i.e. work with a VM and use snapshots to rollback
- Enough free disk space (yeah, I know, lame comment, but you never know..)
- does it work without parameter?
- does the sw developer specify parameter or can you check them youself? (Open CMD as admin, navigate to the setup.exe, run "setup-exe /?"; should give you some information)
- can you debug the setup or create a logfile to see where it fails?
- Which user do you use for this deployment/config? You setup the Computer-Configuration, try installing as "SYSTEM" user and then try i.e. the domain-admin account. (I myself always run deployments as "system" user)
Please keep us updated & good luck ;)