Wix Installer: Failed to wait for child to connect to pipe

I'm trying to install software on a Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 and several installers are failing, including:

Visual C++ Redistributable 2012
MS Build Tools

The log files have similar error messages leading me to think there is a general problem with Wix based installers running on this server:

[0ED0:0F78][2015-03-27T16:57:08]: Burn v3.6.3542.0, Windows v6.1 (Build 7601: Service Pack 1), path:
C:\Users\dsmith\Downloads\vcredist_x64.exe, cmdline: '-burn.unelevated BurnPipe.{B557C8BF-F4EF-414C-BEE4-4548A61377E5} {D6146B39-D884-46C5-81DF-91DE3E882A1B} 3568'
[0ED0:0F78][2015-03-27T16:57:08]: Setting string variable 'WixBundleLog' to value 'C:\Users\dsmith\AppData\Local\Temp\dd_vcredist_amd64_20150327165708.log'
[0ED0:0F78][2015-03-27T16:57:08]: Setting string variable 'WixBundleOriginalSource' to value 'C:\Users\dsmith\Downloads\vcredist_x64.exe'
[0ED0:0F78][2015-03-27T16:57:08]: Error 0x800700e5: Failed to wait for child to connect to pipe. [0ED0:0F78][2015-03-27T16:57:08]: Error 0x800700e5: Failed to connect to elevated parent process.
[0ED0:0F78][2015-03-27T16:57:08]: Variable: WixBundleElevated = 1
[0ED0:0F78][2015-03-27T16:57:08]: Variable: WixBundleLog = C:\Users\dsmith\AppData\Local\Temp\dd_vcredist_amd64_20150327165708.log
[0ED0:0F78][2015-03-27T16:57:08]: Variable: WixBundleOriginalSource = C:\Users\dsmith\Downloads\vcredist_x64.exe
[0ED0:0F78][2015-03-27T16:57:08]: Error 0x80070218: Failed to write
message type to pipe. [0ED0:0F78][2015-03-27T16:57:08]: Error 0x80070218: Failed to post terminate message to child process cache thread. [0ED0:0F78][2015-03-27T16:57:08]: Error 0x800700e5: Failed to run per-user mode.
[0ED0:0F78][2015-03-27T16:57:08]: Exit code: 0x800700e5, restarting: No

Is there any way to fix the server, registry settings to check, etc?

This is an old thread and I haven't tried this but in the wix it looks like you're trying to use the burn protocol for wix communication to visual c++ distribution and that particular .exe might not support the burn protocol for communicating it's progress. Try setting the protocol setting to none and maybe wix can handle that better.

I think the reason is probably because wix is expecting the underlying exe/installer for vc++ to get some form of communication when you tell it protocol="burn".