Notmuch said:
In Method 2 "Re-install Windows Installer" found here :
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;315346. It shows this;
attrib -r -s -h c:\windows\\system32\dllcache.
Why 2 slashes between windows and system32, shouldn't it be only 1?
Correct, it should only be one, but the command will actually succeed
even if you use two (or three or for or ....). In many situations,
Windows isn't picky on how many backslashes you use to separate folder
names with (as long at it is least one ;-)
Also this;
ren msi.dll msi.old
ren msiexec.exe msiexec.old
ren msihnd.dll msihnd.old
Should it be 'rem' instead of 'ren', is that a typo.
When I enter the above it says "The system cannot find the file specified"
No, ren is correct, but sadly enough the article doesn't say/tell you
to go to the %windir%\system32 folder first before doing the rename
operation, so if %windir%\system32 is not your current directory when
you run the above ren commands, they will fail with the message
"The system cannot find the file specified".
So, a correct procedure would have been like this:
cd /d %windir%\system32
ren msi.dll *.old
ren msiexec.exe *.old
ren msihnd.dll *.old
alternatively (not needing the cd command):
ren %windir%\system32\msi.dll *.old
ren %windir%\system32\msiexec.exe *.old
ren %windir%\system32\msihnd.dll *.old
Anyway, the Method 2 "Re-install Windows Installer" in article KB315346
is not relevant for Windows XP, you can't reinstall the Windows Installer
in Windows XP. One of the reasons for this being impossible is that there
is no standalone "Windows Installer" download available for Windows XP.
Also, if you do rename the files above, it will not help anything
anyway (nor will it harm the system), because the file protection
system will kick in and replace the renamed files with a copy from
the dllcache folder just seconds later.
For an example on this, try this experiment in a command prompt:
ren %windir%\system32\msi.dll *.old
About 20 seconds later (it should usually be back after 5 to 10 seconds),
run this command to see that the file is in place again:
dir %windir%\system32\msi.dll
If by any change the file protection system on your computer is by some
strange reason disabled and the file is not put back by the system, run
the following command: ren %windir%\system32\msi.old *.dll
