Windows XP Installer Damaged

Last Updated: 2/14/10

I ran across an issue today caused by Win XP SP2. The issue is the MSI (Windows Installer) installation ver 3.0 did not get updated properly for one reason or another. This will cause a failure in program installation via the MSI installer package. This DOES not mean all applications won't install. Only those that were compiled for install with Microsoft Installer package in VB C++ etc. The type of integration in XP's MSI installer 2.0 does not allow you to reinstall, as far as I can tell. The issue was resolved by the steps bellow. Let me know if you have any questions. After steps are complete please reboot and issue hopefully is resolved.

Reboot into safe mode then....
1.) Locate the msi.dll in the system32 dir.
2.) Check the version of the file. i.e. SP1 version = 2.0.2600.1106
3.) Locate the c:\windows\servicePackFiles\i386\msi.dll (Version is going to be 3.0.x.x.) Copy this file
4.) Go back to system32 and rename the msi.dll currently loaded in there to msi1.dll. Paste the correct msi.dll from service pack dir (version 3.0).
5.) Get to command prompt to re-register the dlls.
6.) At command prompt type regsvr32 msi.dll regsvr32 trust.dll

Keywords: windows xp sp2 msi windows installer windowsinstaller