If the Windows installer has stopped working or the service itself has stopped, one troubleshooting technique is to unregister, and then re-register the Windows installer. This is for Windows 2000 but see below for other versions covered.
- Open an elevated command prompt
- Type
msiexec /unregand hit ‘enter’ - There is no confirmation that anything has happened. As long as there are no errors, the command went through
- Type
msiexec /regserverand hit ‘enter’ - There is no confirmation that anything has happened. As long as there are no errors, the command went through.
- Restart the computer
- Try to install the program again
Source: Method 1 from Microsoft Support.
Installer Error Message or Symptoms
This error doesn’t occur in Windows XP but you may see something similar in Windows Vista and 7.
By clicking on a setup executable, you see an error along the lines of Windows Installer has stopped working.
Another symptom is trying to install .MSI files and having a command prompt opening then closing with nothing happening. If you try to open the files from a command prompt, you get an error along the lines of The program is too big to fit in memory.
Starting the Windows Installer Service
- Click Start > type Services.msc and press Enter.
- Double-click Windows Installer.
- Set Startup type of Windows Installer to Manual.
- Click Start to start the service and then click OK.
Source: Windows Installer Question from Microsoft Answers.
There you have it, a couple fixes for the Windows Installer has stopped working error(s). You should be back to installing things in no time.
