Problems trying to reinstall Windows Installer

[John Dalberg]

Running Windows 2000. I followed method 2 in this link:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;324516

But when I doubleclick on InstMsiW.exe, I get a "The specified service
already exists" error.

What gives?

J.

 

[Ryszard Krajewski]

Probably because "INSTMSI.EXE is a self-extracting executable that will
install the
Windows Installer redistributables only if there is not a more recent
version of the DLLs in the system directory".

A short info is also on http://www.appdeploy.com/tips/detail.asp?id=77 .

On my Small Business Server 2000 "Windows installer" hangs and after a time
informs "Install server not responding; Retry/Cancel". Should I reinstall
"Windows installer" too? I will try do it tomorrow.

Ryszard

 

[John Dalberg]

Probably because "INSTMSI.EXE is a self-extracting executable that will
install the
Windows Installer redistributables only if there is not a more recent
version of the DLLs in the system directory".

The kb I mentioned has steps of renaming some dll's and more. Which means
the installer shouldn't be able to recognize an installed version anymore.
However it seems the installer is doing some detection steps which are not
mentioned in the kb.

BTW, the design of the installer is problematic. If I want to install the
installer, it should let me do it. Put out some kind of "Are you sure?"
dialog and let me make a choice. Forcing me to abort the install just
because I have a version installed already is not smart. Microsoft needs to
learn from InstallShield were they give the option to remove, repair,
reinstall or cancel.

J.