Restoring a service in Win2K

[rkoenn]

I just attempted to install software on my system at work, a Dell Win2K box, and Windows will not let me stating: "The Windows Installer Service could not be accessed... Windows Installer is not correctly installed. ..." Checking on some other sytems, I did find that the msiexec.exe file that performs the service is on the system, which by the way is Win2K with SP3. I also noted that this version of the service executable is different than with SP2. Finally, when I bring up the services tool, the Windows Installer service is not listed, while it is on the other system I checked. So, short of reinstalling Win2K, is there a way to reinstate/reinstall a service that for some reason has been "lost?" Any and all help is greatly appreciated.

 

[tigerwannabe]

have you tried searching the registry for the service? you can go straight there via this registry path: \hkey local machine\system\current control set\services it's possible to manually create a service, but it's kinda difficult & i don't remember exactly how to do it. the ms knowledge base has some info on it.

 

[Woodie]

There is a version 2.0 of the Installer service...you may be able to find it as a seperate d/l from M$.

 

[rkoenn]

Just to let others that are interested know, as I said before, I looked in the services control applet and could not find Windows Installer listed on this box with the problem. Thanks to the other responder who talked about looking in the registry. I found that the entry for MSIInstaller was missing. I then went to another machine and located it there. I guess it seems you can't export a registry key from Win2K as I could find no way to do this. Therefor, I recreated the key from the other machine on my problem machine. Shut down and restarted and the Windows Installer appears now in the services applet. Then ran the install of the software and it worked. Also, to note, I didn't get the subkeys all exactly correct, such as the security key which had a huge numeric entry, but the service still worked. If you ever need to do this in the future, this might work.

 

[mikecel79]

Should be able to export a key in Win2k. Run regedt32 and go to Files Save Key... or Save Subtree As (I can't remember which one it is).

 

[Cnuke]

Instead of all of that why didn't you goto download.com and download the installer? By running the setup program it should have add everything into the regestry.

I am sorry if I am missing something, but it seems like everything was done backwards. If something is not in the regestry then it was not installed or was deleted. I would either install new or delete the key and reinstall if having issues. Why import key without the software when the setup will do it for you?

I hope I am not sounding rude, but confused with the steps that were taken.