msiexec access denied

Yeah, I rebooted. I applied it and rebooted and tried to do an install.

I'll hunt down another windows 10 machine.
Not sure if it'll be of any use, but the below is reg.
msiserver.reg

All the regisry entries in your regfile are the same as at my virtual machine.

You can check file properties:



Or you can try to extract and copy this file (1903 x64) to your system32 folder:
msiexec.zip

Check your Event Viewer for warnings and errors at the time of an install attempt.

Otherwise, I am out of idea.

My properties etc. are the same as yours.

So now what do I do?

As I see it my choices are, stick with it, do a rebuild, or get my xp disc out.

Re-register the Windows Installer service this will fixes registry issues and gets the basic settings ready again.

Launch the command prompt with admin privileges. Type the following commands and hit Enter after each one.

Code:

%windir%\system32\msiexec.exe /unregister

%windir%\system32\msiexec.exe /regserver

%windir%\syswow64\msiexec.exe /unregister

%windir%\syswow64\msiexec.exe /regserver

Close command prompt, save all your work and restart your computer.
Check if you are facing the Windows Installer issues.

Unfortunately I got "Access is denied" when I try to unreg it, on both of them.

I agree with Ed although not sure in-place upgrade can help. But it is simple to try it. In the case of msiexec problem persists:

- install clean system
- install some imaging software
- make system image
- install all your software one-by-one using the following steps
-- install one program
-- test if msixec can run
-- if yes then make system image and continue with next program installation
-- if no then you discovered the problematic program; restore the system from recent non-affected image.

Good luck.

That's about what I had planned if I went down the rebuild route. Just with a few more steps. Well I haven't got anything better to do!

Clean install

backup (Image)

test msiexec

Update

Test again

etc.

Anyway, I'll install over the top. Just see if it works or not. Then we'll know for next time.

Oh happy days!

As someone said "I'll be back"

Hey Ian,

Any news on the troublesome permissions? Or did you start again?

I did have another thought. Before this all started for you, i was wondering if you had maybe previously used any 3rd party software to remove junk files and temp folders and cache files. Some of these programs are quite pokey and can permanently remove old msi installer cache files/Windows update files. If you dont use the recycle bin, these files could be gone forever. In turn, the access denied could be that Windows has just lost its way.

After a fresh install as a test, see if you can make the same thing happen again.

Couldn't face the long haul, so went with a wipe and started again. No problems so far.

I did take an image with just windows loaded, then another with all the updates and lastly one more after all software installed. All after a clean up of unnecessary files and a defraging.

As a side note. Two of my machines are identical hardware, one is on XP and takes an eternity to boot up and gives me no worries, gets a bit sluggish after a few days without a reboot. But at least, I can see the size of my folders in explorer, just like the file sizes. The other machine is now happy on 10 and boots up very quickly, but no go on the size of the folders. Plus if you have the wallpaper changing when looking at the contents of a folder which involves scrolling down, the every time the wallpaper changes explorer put you back to the top of the list, a bit annoying so looking into other explorer type things that do not suffer from this.

Regards