Problems with MSI Shortcuts after installing MS Windows Installer 2.0.2600

[Toby]

We have installed Windows Installer 2.0 silently across our estate (after
successful testing and pilot).

On approx 10% of machines MSI based applications fail to launch stating that
"The application must be installed to be run. Please run setup from the
location where you originally installed the application".

This affects office applications inc Outlook 2000 and a number of other MSI
non MS based apps.

We have found that the reason for this is because when Windows Installer 2
is installed it moves all registered application guids from :

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Installer\Produ
cts

to

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Installer\UserD
ata\S-1-5-18\Products

On the machines that have worked fine all applications are in the new path.
On machines that have failed we have noticed that although MSIExec.exe is
updated to the correct version the apps are still in the original location.

On a working machine, by renaming the working key we can generate the same
error so it is to do with this key.

We are trying to find a log for Windows installer so we can tell if it
failed or not. Is there a log file ?

Has anyone else had this problem and is there a resolution/cause why Windows
Installer fails like this.

Thanks

Toby

 

[Phil Wilson]

See if any of these articles help:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;269276
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;298829
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;320256

 

[Stefan Krueger [MVP]]

Did you reboot the machines after installing MSI 2.0?
After updating MSI 1.x to 2.0 a reboot is required. If you don't reboot, all
advertised MSI shortcuts won't work because your system is partially on MSI
1 and partially on MSI 2. Rebooting completes the update to MSI 2 and the
shortsuts should be working again.

--
Stefan Krueger
Microsoft Windows Installer MVP

Please post your questions in the newsgroup or vist one of these web sites:

Windows Installer FAQ
http://www.msifaq.com - http://www.msifaq.de

InstallSite - Resources for Setup Developers
http://www.installsite.org
http://www.installsite.de (GERMAN)