Hi Lenny--
I would have strongly seconded Johnathan Yaniv's suggestion on the
WICU--it's still a tool to keep with you and particularly helpful when you
are uninstalling an app with a lot of subset installs like MSFT Office and
used very regularly to overcome setup problems by the Office setup people
(including those at Redmond) on the Office groups. It doesn't uninstall teh
program but it cleams up registry orphans and corrupt .dlls that may hamper
an uninstall ( and a future reinstall of the same program even if it is a
different version). It's a big help since Add/Remove does an erratic job
even in the era of Vista and Office 2007.
But if no entries for the Upgrade Advisor show up there, and you search your
files and folders and don't find any--I would think the new improved and
enhanced search--one of the best features for me in Vista would find it but
it might not find all files so you might want to do an advanced search, then
I'd try going into safe mode and installing it.
I know that it is an iron clad rule traditionally in Windows that safe mode
does not load the .msi so you shouldn't be able to install anything but that
isn't how it works out on the street. I've had trouble for example, getting
XP SP2 in on some boxes, and I was able to do it in safe mode. I know the
MSI or Windows Installer isn't supposed to load up in Safe mode, yet XP SP2
installed in safe mode when it wouldn't in regular Windows XP. If you type
msi.exe into the run box in safe mode, it will show up normally so I'm at a
loss to explain this--maybe someone can, but it will only take a few minutes
to try.
I have to say though, with all due respect to anyone, the Upgrade Advisor is
not a pinpoint accurate utility/mini app because it will tell you components
won't work on Vista that certainly will so they err on the side of
conservative caution. It says that Vista won't work because I need new IDE
controllers, etc. and although I've updated mine to the latest from Intel's
byzantine site for it, I've not had a problem installing Vista back all the
way to the first builds so I take the Upgrade Advisor with a grain of salt.
I think the best test of whether Vista will work on a box (given that you
have it's minimal hdw requirements is to as many have said on this group and
Vista general, to run it up the flagpole and try and see.
CH
