"Microsoft SharePoint Foundation administration tool has stopped working" Error During Install of SharePoint 2016 SP1

An issue I have recently run into when installing SharePoint 2016 with SP1 slipstreamed is the following error:

At first, I thought that at the time, it was related to the binaries being on a network share for the install… however, I have also encountered the same issue when installing locally from the server (Windows Server 2012 R2 Datacenter running on VMWare).

Happens towards the end of the installation:

Errors that show up in the Event Log are:

Application: stsadm.exe

Framework Version: v4.0.30319

Description: The process was terminated due to an unhandled exception.

Exception Info: System.IO.FileNotFoundException

at Microsoft.SharePoint.StsAdmin.SPStsAdmin..cctor()

Exception Info: System.TypeInitializationException

at Microsoft.SharePoint.StsAdmin.SPStsAdmin.Main(System.String[])

Faulting application name: stsadm.exe, version: 16.0.4300.1000, time stamp: 0x561d26d9

Faulting module name: KERNELBASE.dll, version: 6.3.9600.18340, time stamp: 0x57366075

Exception code: 0xe0434352

Fault offset: 0x0000000000008a5c

Faulting process id: 0xf88

Faulting application start time: 0x01d283ab05244c8e

Faulting application path: C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\16\BIN\stsadm.exe

Faulting module path: C:\Windows\system32\KERNELBASE.dll

Report Id: 44d175a0-ef9e-11e6-80c4-0050568466c7

Faulting package full name:

Faulting package-relative application ID:

This seems to happen about 4-6 times during the install process. This has happened across all servers in the farm. I have done some research into this – appeared to be a known problem with prior versions, but do not have an answer at this time.

My solution to the problem is straight forward enough, just click Close Program. I have not run into any lasting effects after doing so. Lets hope that doesn’t change 🙂