Windows Installer Service Problems
 

So for a while now, I kept getting the message "The Windows Installer Service could not be accessed. This can occur if you are running Windows in safe mode, or if the Windows Installer is not correctly installed. Contact your support personnel for assistance." Today, I got frustrated by it, and decided to fix it, however I'm having problems.

I backed up all the old dlls and exes associated with the msi service per Microsoft's website's instructions and reinstalled the windows installer. This did not fix my problem.

I proceeded to verify that I had the right path in the registry under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Servic es\MSIServer in the ImagePath variable. I did. It was the default msiexec location, with the ValueData in ImagePath reading C:\WINDOWS\system32\msiexec.exe /V. This solved the original problem, however now my Microsoft installer is stuck in the preparing to install mode. I waited 10 minutes for it to prepare. When I felt that it was obvious that the installation was a failed venture, I canceled. The windows installer then got stuck canceling the installation process. I'm not sure how to proceed from here. Any help would be appreciated.

Re: Windows Installer Service Problems
 

Actually now it's just back to giving me the original message.

Re: Windows Installer Service Problems
 

check the solution from Microsoft support site: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/315346

before you go through all that step, just check if "Window Installer" service is starting automatic. go to Control Panel >> Performance and Maintenance >> Administrative Tools >> Services.
* if "Window Installer" is not set to start automatic, set it to start automatic and restart you computer.
* if it still giving you the error message do the steps given by Microsoft.