Error 1639 -- Invalid command line argument

[Gerard Tromp]

Greetings!

OS: Windows 2000
MSI version: 2.00.26.1183 (also given as 2.0.2600.1183)

All of a sudden Installer is failing with error 1639 -- invalid command line
argument. This is on installation packages from Microsoft, whether
automated, i.e. clicking on some selfextrcting, self-installing archive, or
by invocation on the command line.

The registry entries appear to be correct, i.e. install is:
"C:\WINNT\system32\msiexec.exe" /i "%1" %*
and repair, uninstall and patch have the correct command line arguments /f,
/x, and /p respectively

Invocation on the command line allows logging. It does appear that there are
no command line arguments passed to the log even though MSI parses the
command line and complains if the arguments are incorrect/inappropriate.

I can provide the log file if someone is interested.

I have found only a few posts or web sites with installer and error 1639.

Any suggestions would be much appreciated.

Gerard

 

[Kallely Sajan]

Check if System and user installing the kit have full permissions on C:\,
C:\WINNT\system32, C:\WINNT, C:\WINNT\Installer, and %TEMP%

 

[Gerard Tromp]

Greetings!

The problem was a wayward environment variable.

Yes, SYSTEM and installer user have the correct permissions.

Turns out that the problem was a wayward environment variable.
HOMEPATH was set to "Documents and Settings"\"..login.."\"My Documents"

This was shown in the log file (by manual execution of msiexec with log
flags) to come out as
%HOMEPATH=

Correction of HOMEPATH to C:\...full path fixed the problem

Gerard

 

[gavkearney]

I'm having the same problem as yourself, can you please elaborate on the solution, what variable HOMEPATH, I can find no such variable. I've had this problem for some months now, PLease please help, many thanks in advance