MSI

[Pawel Tyrma]

Hello!

I'm not really sure if that belongs here, but as I could find nothing more
fitting... well, here goes:

The system I'm using is MS Windows XP Professional Edition.
After a long time of running smoothly, my Microsoft Installer has gone nuts.
Every time I try to install some software from a .msi file, I get the error:
"Failed to extract file "DLL_.ini" from the binary table."
Now I'm sure this is a bug in the MSI - it doesn't work on _any_ .msi files,
and it crashes in this way on files I had on my hard drive and have been
reinstalling for ages, with never as much as a hint at a problem. Probobaly
something screwed up my registry or whatever.

It would all be fine, but whenever I try to find a way to reinstall the MSI,
I find the comment: "MSI 2.0 is already included in windows XP, so no
installation is needed". Which means I didn't find any way to repair the
thing.

Has anybody got any suggestions? Perhaps where to download MSI for XP, or
how to fix the problem, or at least where to take this question?

[Chris Jackson]

If you have a system file issue on XP, you can try going to the command
prompt (start - run - cmd) and typing sfc /scannow. This will check all of
your system files and replace any that appear to be damaged. If this still
doesn't work, you can try booting to your XP CD and running a repair
installation. Both of these will require you to have your Windows XP CD.

--
Chris Jackson
Software Engineer
Microsoft MVP - Windows XP
Windows XP Associate Expert
--
"Pawel Tyrma" > wrote in message
...
> Hello!
>
> I'm not really sure if that belongs here, but as I could find nothing more
> fitting... well, here goes:
>
> The system I'm using is MS Windows XP Professional Edition.
> After a long time of running smoothly, my Microsoft Installer has gone
nuts.
> Every time I try to install some software from a .msi file, I get the
error:
> "Failed to extract file "DLL_.ini" from the binary table."
> Now I'm sure this is a bug in the MSI - it doesn't work on _any_ .msi
files,
> and it crashes in this way on files I had on my hard drive and have been
> reinstalling for ages, with never as much as a hint at a problem.
Probobaly
> something screwed up my registry or whatever.
>
> It would all be fine, but whenever I try to find a way to reinstall the
MSI,
> I find the comment: "MSI 2.0 is already included in windows XP, so no
> installation is needed". Which means I didn't find any way to repair the
> thing.
>
> Has anybody got any suggestions? Perhaps where to download MSI for XP, or
> how to fix the problem, or at least where to take this question?
>

[Bob S.]

Chris,

Follow-up question for you:

When you do as suggested, it asks for your XP CD (in this case the PRO RTM
version) and while its doing the compare, if it needs to replace a file
would it be from the CD and not from the SP-1 download and install ?

Asked another way - do you have to re-install any updates after doing this?

Thanks,

Bob S.

"Chris Jackson" > wrote in message
...
> If you have a system file issue on XP, you can try going to the command
> prompt (start - run - cmd) and typing sfc /scannow. This will check all of
> your system files and replace any that appear to be damaged. If this still
> doesn't work, you can try booting to your XP CD and running a repair
> installation. Both of these will require you to have your Windows XP CD.
>
> --
> Chris Jackson
> Software Engineer
> Microsoft MVP - Windows XP
> Windows XP Associate Expert
> --
> "Pawel Tyrma" > wrote in message
> ...
> > Hello!
> >
> > I'm not really sure if that belongs here, but as I could find nothing
more
> > fitting... well, here goes:
> >
> > The system I'm using is MS Windows XP Professional Edition.
> > After a long time of running smoothly, my Microsoft Installer has gone
> nuts.
> > Every time I try to install some software from a .msi file, I get the
> error:
> > "Failed to extract file "DLL_.ini" from the binary table."
> > Now I'm sure this is a bug in the MSI - it doesn't work on _any_ .msi
> files,
> > and it crashes in this way on files I had on my hard drive and have been
> > reinstalling for ages, with never as much as a hint at a problem.
> Probobaly
> > something screwed up my registry or whatever.
> >
> > It would all be fine, but whenever I try to find a way to reinstall the
> MSI,
> > I find the comment: "MSI 2.0 is already included in windows XP, so no
> > installation is needed". Which means I didn't find any way to repair the
> > thing.
> >
> > Has anybody got any suggestions? Perhaps where to download MSI for XP,
or
> > how to fix the problem, or at least where to take this question?
> >
>
>

[Chris Jackson]

> Follow-up question for you:
> When you do as suggested, it asks for your XP CD (in this case the PRO RTM
> version) and while its doing the compare, if it needs to replace a file
> would it be from the CD and not from the SP-1 download and install ?
> Asked another way - do you have to re-install any updates after doing
this?

Well, I'm not entirely sure. How's that for an answer? When you run sfc, it
checks a checksum against what it finds locally, so it's not actually going
through and comparing version numbers, just the checksums, making sure that
everything is OK. If something is not OK, then it grabs it from the cache
(%Systemroot%\System32\Dllcache) which gets updated when you apply a patch.
But, it could also grab it from the installation media. So, if you have a
problem with a critical system file, and it's broken in both the actual file
and the cache folder, then it could come from the install media, and hence
would not be patched. But, a visit to WindowsUpdate would detect this, and
offer you the patch yet again. It does the best it can, but it can give you
an older, unpatched version under certain circumstances. A visit to
WindowsUpdate afterwards would be wise.

--
Chris Jackson
Software Engineer
Microsoft MVP - Windows XP
Windows XP Associate Expert
--

[Bob S.]

Good enough answer - thanks.

Bob S.