What is the Windows Installer Service
Like the name suggests this is a service used by your operating system used to install, maintain and uninstall software and application you want on your computer.
Not to be confused with the installation process of the operating system itself.
Since Windows 7, the installer now comes built into your operating system and can not be downloaded and added like regular software.
When will you see this error
As the Windows installer is a very important part of your computer, you will not be able to make many changes of software without it, you might see this error when trying to update, upgrade, install or uninstall software.
Sometimes, you might not even be trying to install software but repair.
For example, Microsoft Office might stop working properly and need to be repaired.
The repair process will need to use th Installer and if this is not working properly you will not be bale to repair Microsoft Office and instead get some kind of Installer is not working properly, or not started, error.
Why are you getting this error
- Viruses or malicious software can cause all sorts of operating system errors and the two which usually cop the brunt of it are the Remote Procedure Call Service and Windows Installer.
- Conflicting Software – other software which as unintentionally damaged operating system files.
- Hard Drive Failure. When your hardware such as the hard drive starts to fail (which hosts the operating system) a lot of Windows services are usually first to play up.
Microsoft Office and Apple Itunes users might have seen this.
What can you do
There are a couple of things you can do to try and repair the Windows installer service.
They don’t always work but are definitely worth a try before you have to get in invasive and start getting deeper into the operating system or wiping the computer.
Start the serviec
It could just be that the Windows Installer is not running in the background. If that is the case lets just turn it back on.
- Go to start, then run.
- Type services.msc
- Go down to Windows Installer
- In the General Tab, go down to Startup Type and make sure it is set to Manual.
- Restart your computer.
Reregister the service
- Go to start and open command prompt (elevated).
- Type MSIEXEC /UNREGSERVER
- Type MSIEXEC /REGSERVER
- Close command Prompt
- Try installing your program again
Antivirus Program
If the above two steps didn’t work, you might have something active on your system messing with it.
Run your antivirus program and afterwards perform the “service restart” and “Reregistering Service” again.
Sorry, you might need to factory Reset
If all else fails, you might just have too many things wrong with your computer and need to do a factory reset.
Before doing this make sure you backup all your files.
After the reset is finished you will need to reinstall all your programs again. Most programs you can not save (they are part of an installation process).
When putting your files back onto the computer (music, movies, data etc) make sure you are not reuploading any viruses or programs which may have infected your computer int he first place.
An offline antivirus program can help with with this.
