Msiexec.exe and MSIBAD.tmp on restarting?

[John Herbster]

I just had a power failure on my PC. After restarting, the system was
very slow for about 20 minutes, while the disk was very busy and an
msiexec.exe task or three were chewing up about 95% of the CPU time,
according to the Win2K Windows Task Manager Process tab. All totaled,
the longest running msiexec accumulated over 16 minutes of CPU time.
During this processing, every now and then, a line would popup in the
process list with the curious Image Name "MSIBAD.tmp".

What does all this mean? Thanks for any ideas, JohnH

 

[George Hester]

I would look in the Event Viewer. Under System and Applications tell us the errors if any there. We are looking for msiexec errors (Windows Installer).

 

[John Herbster]

I would look in the Event Viewer.
.... We are looking for msiexec errors (Windows Installer).

Interesting!
The EventViewer shows *no* events in any catagory.
--JohnH

 

[George Hester]

Then obviously you have no error hmmm...

Look in you temp folders for this msibad.tmp file. You may have to search the harddrive for it. If it is relatively small you may be able to open it in Notepad and see if there is any human readable text in it.

Try this program from Microsoft:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?kbid=290301

NOTE: Do NOT remove Installer information ussing this tool of anything that you have NOT explicitly un-installed first. Delete does NOT count.

 

[John Herbster]

George, Thanks for suggestions.

Look in you temp folders for this msibad.tmp file.

MSIBAD.tmp was not found in C or D or RecycleBin.

Try this program from Microsoft:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?kbid=290301

I tried that "Windows Install Clean Up" and did not find
anything suspicious.

Rgds, JohnH

 

[George Hester]

The tmp file may get formed and deleted before you can get to it. It is obviously there when you see it in Processes. Can you select the msibad.tmp in Task Managrt | Processes and End the process?

 

[John Herbster]

The [MSIBAD.tmp] file may get formed and deleted before you
can get to it. It is obviously there when you see it in Processes.
Can you select the msibad.tmp in Task Managrt | Processes
and End the process?

George, Thanks for reply. I cannot kill it by hand.
It observed and gone in about a quarter of a second.
Maybe a fancy system hook could do something;
but this more than I wanted to know about Win2K.
(I have fond memories of the days when computers
were simple and we could concentrate our thoughts
on the real problems to be solved.)
Rgds, JohnH

 

[George Hester]

Then put a file by the same name in your %TEMP% folder(s). Just make with Notepad and inside it put Hi so that the file is not 0KB. Same behavior? You my need to put it in %WINDIR% as well.

--
George Hester
__________________________________

The [MSIBAD.tmp] file may get formed and deleted before you
can get to it. It is obviously there when you see it in Processes.
Can you select the msibad.tmp in Task Managrt | Processes
and End the process?

George, Thanks for reply. I cannot kill it by hand.
It observed and gone in about a quarter of a second.
Maybe a fancy system hook could do something;
but this more than I wanted to know about Win2K.
(I have fond memories of the days when computers
were simple and we could concentrate our thoughts
on the real problems to be solved.)
Rgds, JohnH