MSI Engine fails to start

Question

We have an MSI installer created using InstallAware. For some mystical reason, some of the MSI files generated using the same build process fail on one particular machine. The MSI Engine fails to start and I do not even see logs created. As I result I cannot do anything with the problem. I tried disabling the antivirus and firewall if anything like that was blocking a process. This happens randomly with certain builds only. Those builds work on other machines smoothly.

Does anyone have an clue about how to approach the problem?

Answer 1

Perhaps you can try to verify that the Windows Installer Engine is up to date on the machine in question? Check the version of msi.dll in C:\Windows\system32 or equivalent path if Windows is on another drive letter. The last version is at the time of writing 5.0.7601.17807.

Obviously check if the problematic machine is different in other ways: OS version, language version, login user (admin?), disk space, disk errors, etc... The command line to generate a verbose log file is (silent install, with verbose log file):

msiexec.exe /I "C:\Test.msi" /QN /L*V "C:\Temp\msilog.log"

However, it sounds like you cannot get the engine running at all, and then there will be no log.

Answer 2

I had this problem once with my project. The quick solution could be that you try and change the Product code in the project settings and re-build it. And then install this new msi on the same problematic machine. Hopefully your problem would be gone then. If this resolves your problem, do let everybody know about it by marking this answer as useful.