XP: Windows Installer problem

[bibblebub]

I have an XP+SP3 laptop, and I downloaded and installed a program this morning.

The problem then arose that every time I tried to run that program, windows installer ran first, prompting for the insertion of the installation disk for a completely separate installed program. After numerous cancels followed by it prompting again, it eventually got the message that I wasn't going to insert any disks (I didn't have the disk anyway) and let run the program that I wanted.

I got around this problem by downloading and using the Windows Installed Clean Up utility to remove the entry for that second unrelated program, even though it would seem that if I want to remove that in future I will be forced in to simply delete files rather than uninstalling it properly.

But this is not the first time this has happened - in the past, trying to run some programs brought up a prompt to install the installation disk for a document viewer program, completely unconnected with what I was trying to run.

So why should this behaviour occur (it's only for a small minority of installs on my machine) and is it possible to prevent this behaviour in future?

[AlBags]

First thing is to update Windows Installer (if it isn't updated already)
No harm in re-installing it tho.
Try this first.
http://www.softwarepa...indows-installer.html

[AlBags]

Sorry .. Vista version ...
Use this one ...

http://www.softwarepa...ows/wininstallnt.html

[bibblebub]

thanks for the link - I'll try it tomorrow

[ChuckFickens]

The windows installer has been failing during updates for a couple of weeks now. although there is probably nothing wrong with the links above I would always down load windows updates and components direct from microsoft, not some third party site.

http://www.microsoft....d6f9f4&displaylang=en

[bibblebub]

ok cheers (was leaving it till after a backup later anyway)

[AlBags]

There is nothing wrong with Softwarepatch site. Never has been. My customers and I use it regularly.
The bonus is that you do not have to go through Windows verification crap (which is a mess of a system) for "whatever" reason. All their files are direct downloads.

[bibblebub]

I will doing a disk image backup this afternoon and so will have no problem with trying Softwarepatch once that is complete.

I do take reasonable care with checking what I am downloading but I'm quite willing to try different approaches, such as avoiding Microsoft directly.

[AlBags]

Most of the Operating system softwares and extras are genuine files. You can see all Windows stuff is usually prefixed KB.... also has info regarding Windows patches that are actually easy to read.
Useful site, as have direct links to Adobe,flash, drivers, updates etc.

[bibblebub]

Just a footnote to say that I have now downloaded, scanned and installed Windows Installer from softwarepatch and my machine is still running ok after 10 minutes. All I have to do now is find something to install.