I had the same issue. No additional error information. Downloaded Visual Studio C++, Visual Studio .Net, Direct X SDK, and reinstalled Microsoft Frameworks 4.0. The 32 bit version would not run on a 64 bit Windows Home PC. Had to load the 64 bit version. Hopefully the other executables required will work with the 64 bit version of the Kinect SDK.
The event viewer for the failure of installing the 32 bit version contains gibberish. Did not find anything online for the event IDs 11708 and 16368.
Product: Microsoft Kinect 1.0 Beta2 SDK -- Installation failed.
Log Name: Application
Source: MsiInstaller
Date: 4/19/2012 3:14:04 PM
Event ID: 11708
Task Category: None
Level: Information
Keywords: Classic
User: xxxxxx\xxxxxx
Computer: xxxxxx
Description:
Product: Microsoft Kinect 1.0 Beta2 SDK -- Installation failed.
Event Xml:
<Event xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/win/2004/08/events/event">
<System>
<Provider Name="MsiInstaller" />
<EventID Qualifiers="0">11708</EventID>
<Level>4</Level>
<Task>0</Task>
<Keywords>0x80000000000000</Keywords>
<TimeCreated SystemTime="2012-04-19T19:14:04.000000000Z" />
<EventRecordID>16368</EventRecordID>
<Channel>Application</Channel>
<Computer>xxxxxx</Computer>
<Security UserID="xxxxx" />
</System>
<EventData>
<Data>Product: Microsoft Kinect 1.0 Beta2 SDK -- Installation failed.</Data>
<Data>(NULL)</Data>
<Data>(NULL)</Data>
<Data>(NULL)</Data>
<Data>(NULL)</Data>
<Data>(NULL)</Data>
<Data>
</Data>
<Binary>7B44463432343134462D463646372D343435382D38 3536362D4344433036313545394139427D</Binary>
</EventData>
</Event>
I'm assuming that we are supposed to download the correct version for our OS even though the instructions were explicit in specifying the 32 bit version. Hopefully the other applications will run under 64 bit. I have no 32 bit processors running win7...