MSI install deletes contents of C:\WINNT\Installer

[Robert]

Whenever I install an MSI based product I loose my file associations
for Office and the icons for the office products in Quick launch and
the Start Menu.

The installation I performed was the manual install for JRE, which
uses an MSI to perform its install.

What I discovered is once the MSI portion of the install commences the
contents of the C:\WINNT\Installer directory is completely wiped
clean. This does not just occur with the JRE install, it occurs with
many MSI based installations.

Why does this occur? Does anyone have any idea what is happening?

What I need to do is somehow fix the corruption or whatever it is that
is causing this to happen. I do not believe that this is normal.

Cheers
Robert

 

[George Hester]

No it is not normal and I doubt that is happening. That folder is hidden so if you do not have all the options checked that enable you to see everything in your system it can happen that you think this.

One thing you might check is the Windows Installer Cleanup utility. Run that when you think your installation files have disappeared and see what that says.

 

[robert]

No it is not normal and I doubt that is happening. That folder is

hidden so if you do not have all the options checked that enable you to
see everything in your system it can happen that you think this.

One thing you might check is the Windows Installer Cleanup utility.

Run that when you think your installation files have disappeared and
see what that says.

 

[robert]

Please believe me when I say that this is happening. I know all about
hidden files and folders.

For some reason MSIEXEC deletes the contents of the Installer folder.

I thought about using the Windows Installer Cleanup utility but I do
not believe this will fix my problem. The utility's purpose it to
clean up any unwanted installs. So I don't think it will help. But
then again it may be worth a try and I will give it a try.
Thanks for your response.
Cheers
Robert

 

[George Hester]

No its purpose is to clean up failed uninstalls done with Add\Remove first.

If you say this application is doing this then maybe you have upgraded to the new 3.0 installer?

 

[robert]

No I have not upgraded to version 3.0. But having said that I will
actually be trying the upgrade to see if it fixes it.

The windows 2000 workstations do not have any failed installs so using
the Cleanup Utility will not fix the issue.

There seems to be a coruption of some type with the MSI installer on
these workstations. The client uses ghost to roll out any workstation
images. Becuase all of the worsktations are based on the same image
then this problem ocurs with all workstations.

Any installed applications that leave some info in the
C:\WinNT\Installer folder (such as office and other apps) have an issue
after an MSI based install is installed. What I have found is the MSI
installer deletes all contents of the C:\WinNT\Installer folder. This
of course causes issues for Office applications. The most obvious is
the shortcuts disappear. And the file association icon disapears as
well.

Like I said this is not normal behaviour and I have never seen this
happen before. I was hoping someone would have an idea on why this is
occuriong and how to fix.

Please be aware that creating a new Windows 2000 image is the best fix
but this envionment has a few thousand machines spread througout the
country. So this type of mass deplyoment is expensive and time
consuming. It is not as simple as re-installing office.

The workstations are SP2 and are using Windows Installer V1. Upgrading
to SP4 also cuases the same problem to occur. This is becuase SP4
upgrades Windows Installer. Upgrading Windows Installer to V2 also
causes the problem. Everything in the C:\WinNT\Installer fodler gets
deleted.

Cheers
Robert

 

[George Hester]

failed uninstalls.