When you install EFTPS (Electronic Federal Tax Payment System) for the first time, you will likely receive “InstallAnywhere” titled windows saying “Please select another location to extract the installer to:” and have “Choose” and “Cancel” buttons. Like the one above.
Do not Choose Another Location
It might come naturally to click on Choose but this would be a great mistake. The reason why this message is shown is that you do not have enough Administrator Permissions to install where EFTPS is supposed to be. EFTPS wants to install itself to:
C:\Program Files (x86)\EFTPS Batch Provider Client
This means your Windows User (the one you currently logged in to windows with) has no sufficient permissions to create files in Program Files in your main hard drive. If you try to bypass this error by choosing somewhere like your Desktop or C: drive itself, you will face major consequences when you try to update EFTPS Batch Provider in the future.
The version updates come very often and they are not favoring custom setups. We can speculate that the developers developing this government software do not anticipate users bypassing basic installation procedures. This is a very common issue with many software, not limited to government ones only.
If you choose another location, prepare yourself for future headaches. Do the right thing and use “Elevated Privileges Installation”. Read more about this IT topic at Microsoft’s own website.
How to Initiate Installation
When you see this type of error, likely your current IT company or an IT personnel installed your server with User Groups and Permission Levels. This is the right way to do it so do not panic or blame anyone. If you are installing things without any warning or popups while at work, you actually have a major problem, way bigger than the EFTPS errors you are encountering.
To elevate an installation or execution of a program, you need to right-click on the executable file (typically EXE or MSI extensions). Right-click on the installer file and you will see something similar menu to this screenshot:
After clicking on “Run as administrator”, you will be greeted with another window. This time it will blackout everything else and will ask you to enter the elevated user, which in general is either “Administrator” or another user created by your previous IT professional. This screen is also known as UAC.
A username is something you must know along with its password. If you do not have it, you cannot proceed. This is the most powerful defense of Microsoft Windows against unauthorized installations of any type of software. This is to protect you and is a good thing to see often.
If you do not have the user name and password for your administrator account, you must contact your current IT Provider. If you do not have one, you must reach out to whoever created your network / IT system. After entering, your installation will continue as expected. You should see this screen:
EFTPS Please Select Another Location Problem Conclusion
You need to install all your software with administrator rights on your company computers. Of course, do not run unknown software with administrator rights. For EFTPS, it is crucial to run it with administrator rights, because database location and C:/ProgramData also use these permissions.
If you need help, you can contact the most experienced and best accounting IT company in the United States. Contact us today for your questions. We answer them for free.