Installer seems corrupted

[Mark Levesque]

When trying to install programs, I'm getting "The Windows
Installer Service Could Not Be Accessed" error message.
The registry is pointing to the correct image location, so
that's not the problem.

I also tried reinstalling Windows Installer, but I was
unable to do so. I renamed msi.dll, misexec.exe and
msihnd.dll to .old and rebooted, but the files were back
when the reboot completed. When I tried to run the
download to reinstall Windows Installer it said that we
already had that service and stopped running.

When I try a "net start msiserver" at the command prompt,
I get "System error 5. Access is denied."

I am running from the only user account on the machine,
which has administrator privileges. Help!

 

[Jason Hall [MSFT]]

--------------------

Sender: "Mark Levesque" <[email protected]>
Subject: Installer seems corrupted
Date: Tue, 8 Jun 2004 06:38:38 -0700

When trying to install programs, I'm getting "The Windows
Installer Service Could Not Be Accessed" error message.
The registry is pointing to the correct image location, so
that's not the problem.

I also tried reinstalling Windows Installer, but I was
unable to do so. I renamed msi.dll, misexec.exe and
msihnd.dll to .old and rebooted, but the files were back
when the reboot completed. When I tried to run the
download to reinstall Windows Installer it said that we
already had that service and stopped running.

When I try a "net start msiserver" at the command prompt,
I get "System error 5. Access is denied."

I am running from the only user account on the machine,
which has administrator privileges. Help!

-------------------------

Windows will replace system files that are deleted, that is why those files
mysteriously came back

1. Boot the computer to safe mode and delete the following files.
/<system root>/system32/msi.dll
/<system root>/system32/msiexec.exe
/<system root>/system32/msihnd.dll
/<system root>/system32/dllcache/msi.dll
/<system root>/system32/dllcache/msiexec.exe
/<system root>/system32/dllcache/msihnd.dll
2. Restart the computer and run the InstmsiW.exe program.


--
~~ JASON HALL ~~
~ Performance Support Specialist,
~ Microsoft Enterprise Platforms Support
~ This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no
rights.
~ Use of included script samples are subject to the terms specified at
http://www.microsoft.com/info/cpyright.htm
~ Note: For the benefit of the community-at-large, all responses to this
message are best directed to the newsgroup/thread from which they
originated.

 

[Mark Levesque]

Ok- here's what happened when I tried your suggestions:

I was able to delete every file except c:\winnt\system32
\msi.dll; on this file I got an error that the file was in
use. This <u>was</u> in safe mode.

I rebooted anyway. I still wasn't able to delete that
file. When I tried to run InstmsiW.exe, it said "the
specified service already exists."

What next?

 

[Torgeir Bakken \(MVP\)]

When trying to install programs, I'm getting "The Windows
Installer Service Could Not Be Accessed" error message.
The registry is pointing to the correct image location, so
that's not the problem.

Hi

Some Windows Installer repair tips here:

For Windows 2000/NT4:
http://groups.google.com/[email protected]

For Windows XP:
http://groups.google.com/[email protected]

 

[Guest]

Ok,so I tried everything on that page. Even after deleting
the key, I still got the same annoying "the specified
service already exists" erro message from trying to run
the installer executable.

I've got a free clue- claiming the "service already
exists" and quitting is a horrible, horrible
implementation. It's a fair bet that if I could have
convinced the executable to run anyway (and delete old
components) I'd be done already. Instead I continue to
spend valuable time trying to trick the software into
doing the right thing. This is a huge and painful
timesink. I should be able to reinstall the installer.
That I can't is an immense pain in the ass. My computer is
now all but unusable. I have a printer that I can't
install the drivers for because the installer is broken.
This is such a basic obstacle to productivity that there
should be a reasonable way to recover.