"The Windows Installer service could not be accessed"

[Mike Kron]

Hello,

I've had a problem crop up recently on one of my desktops, and I'm wondering
if anybody has any inisght into this. Whenever I try to install Skype, I get
an error dialogue: "The Windows Installer service could not be accessed." I
would think it might have just been a bad installer, but I just got the same
error message from a new Photo downloading application during it's install
sequence.

I did a quick google of this text, and the general advice seems to be that
Windows can't find the Windows Installer application, msiexec.exe. I looked
in the registry underunder
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/SYSTEM/CurrentControlSet/Services/MSIServer, and the
ImagePath value is set to "C:\WINDOWS\system32\msiexec.exe /V", which is
where msiexec.exe resides. Looked fine. I then tried renaming the
executable and .dll's, and reinstalling the application from the 3.1
redistributable, but no change. I also tried running msiexec /unregister and
/regserver, but no change.

I'm a bit baffled as to what to try next. The application is there, it's
just that nobody can find it. The one thing I'm wondering is if McAffe might
somehow be interfering with Windows Installer? I found a few posts around
the net that suggested some security services can hide it.

I'd greatly appreciate any advice. Thanks very much!

 

[John]

Type 'services.msc' in the 'Run' box to see if the service is disabled
there. If it is, just enable it.

John.

 

[sparkey47]

Type 'services.msc' in the 'Run' box to see if the service is disabled
there. If it is, just enable it.

John.

 

[sparkey47]

I tried the services.msc route and set the windows installer to automatic and
then tried to start it in the profile. I received the following "services
could not start the windows installer service on Local computer. Error 3 the
system cannot find the path specified. What do you suggest I attempt now.
Thanks for your help up to this point.

 

[Ramesh, MS-MVP]

Re-register Windows Installer by following the steps given in "Method 2" in this article:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/324516

Once done, restart Windows and start the Windows Installer service.

--
Regards,

Ramesh Srinivasan, Microsoft MVP [Windows Shell/User]
Windows® Troubleshooting http://www.winhelponline.com
Winhelponline.com blog http://www.winhelponline.com/blog


I tried the services.msc route and set the windows installer to automatic and
then tried to start it in the profile. I received the following "services
could not start the windows installer service on Local computer. Error 3 the
system cannot find the path specified. What do you suggest I attempt now.
Thanks for your help up to this point.