Fix Windows Installer Errors
Installing programs in Windows is usually pretty simple, but Microsoft hides the complex details from the user. Under the hood, there are a lot of things that can go wrong.
Windows Installer and MSI Files
Windows has a common installation handler called Microsoft Installer (MSI), which handles the installation of .msi files. Occasionally, the installer stops working properly and you might get an error about the “Windows Installer service” when this happens. Typically this is the result of a corrupted registry although it could simply be a temporary problem.
The first step to try is a restart. It’s possible that a previous installation didn’t finish and is preventing the current installation from working. If that doesn’t work, there are several things you can try (but restart first to make sure no programs are still trying to install):
1. Make sure you have the latest Windows Updates. You can manually download the latest Windows Installer package from this page.
2. Re-register the Windows Installer DLL by running the following commands from the command prompt (Start -> Run… -> cmd):
msiexec /unreg
msiexec /regserver
3. Make sure the Windows Installer service isn’t disabled. Go to Start -> Settings -> Control Panel and switch to Classic view if necessary. Open Administrative Tools -> Services and find the Windows Installer service. The Startup column should say “Manual” but the service doesn’t necessarily need to be running.
4. Delete all files in the following temporary folders (open My Computer and drag these addresses to the address bar):
%systemdrive%\temp
%systemdrive%\%windir%\temp
%temp%
Each of these addresses will expand into the temporary folders used by Windows Installer.
Windows Updates
If you have installed Service Pack 2 recently, or have recently turned on Automatic Updates, you computer may hang during the install. You can solve the problem by following the instructions at the following page:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;885894
You may need to retry installing updates in “Custom Install” mode so you can see if one of them is in the list.
More recently, Microsoft has released a Flash update that does not correctly detect whether Flash is installed. While it’s pretty rare that someone doesn’t have Flash installed this update will continually fail to install (although it shouldn’t hang your computer). You can either uncheck the update and install it later if you need to or just ignore its behavior.
Windows Installer Won’t Go Away
Sometimes Windows Installer will run every time you run a program. This is especially a problem with Microsoft Office, which will occasionally lock up while searching vainly for some component that it believes is necessary. The cause of this is typically the default installation of Office which sets some features to “Install on first use” (why Clippy can’t be that way by default, no one knows). When it thinks you are trying to use those features it tries to install them from the CD, as though we all faithfully keep the Office install CD in our DVD drives (or within arm’s reach).
A possible fix for this is to re-install the offending product, using the custom installation option. Make sure that none of the items are set to “Install on first use”. If that doesn’t work though, there’s not a lot that you can do. You can disable the Windows Installer service (see #3 in the first section on MSI files, right-click on the service, and set it to “Disabled”) but then you’ll have to enable it every time you want to install a new program that uses the Windows Installer service.