I have a PC I'm working on that has a major problem with the Windows
Installer. I followed most of the suggestions here:
http://www.techsupportforum.com/microsoft-support/windows-xp-support/...
but have had little success. The Windows Installer still appears to
be non-functional. I still get "Another install is already in
progress" messages when I try to run the Windows Installer Cleanup
Utility, or update Adobe Reader, as the PC owner was trying to do.
Any thoughts?
I worked on this the other day with another person. This is popular
with Adobe. Here are a couple exchanges that got him running:
First:
I would guess that something was trying to install and left the
Windows installer (msiexec.exe) running, or it is running for some
unknown reason when there is no install happening.
Check in Task Manager (CTRL+ALT+DEL) and see if there is a process
called msiexec running. If there is and you are not installing
anything at the moment, terminate the msiexec process.
I would reboot and check TM again before installing to make sure it is
not there. If msiexec is running for no particular reason after a
reboot, you have some other problem, so let us know.
Try your installation again when you are sure msiexec is not running
making sure your installation makes a graceful exit. Check TM again
to be sure it goes away. Check TM during the installation if you want
and you should see it.
As long as there is only one copy of msiexec running and you are doing
one install at a time you should not see this message.
Second:
Go to Control Panel, Administrative Tools, Services.
Find the Windows Installer service. What is the status and Startup
Type?
Status should be empty and Startup Type should be Manual.
Whatever it is, set the Properties Startup type to disabled. Exit
appropriately.
Reboot.
Is msiexec now running in TM? If it is, there is another problem.
If not, set the service back to Manual. Check TM again for msiexec.
Try the install. We may need to do this again to be sure msiexec is
never running for some unknown reason until you want it to during the
install. Then it should go away.
Third:
Download, install, update and do a full scan with these three free
malware detection programs.
If the will not install with the same error, kill the msiexec process
until they do install and run properly.
Malwarebytes (MBAM):
http://malwarebytes.org/
SUPERAntiSpyware: (SAS):
http://www.superantispyware.com/
AVG (AVG):
http://free.avg.com/
There is a Fourth if needed.
Jose
