Can not install software?

What happens . . what error message do you get when you try to install it?

I added to this thread already, but it didn't go to the front of the forum...

Has anyone resolved this problem? I have it too. (Inspiron b130.) Two program installers have stopped responding when I pressed 'Finish': the update for Cyberlink PowerDVD and a program on a Canon digital camera software disc. Right clicking and closing the program on the task bar says it's not responding; I end it, and a second later an error box pops up, saying, in one case: "the remote procedure call failed."

 

I've found a few references to the problem, but no explanation or fix. The problem seems unrelated to the usual Windows Installer and Installshield (how are those two related?) issues frequently mentioned around the internet, such as problems involving explicit error messages, program access, and out of date script drivers.

 

The strange thing is, the programs seem to basically install, in that they're functional and seemingly entirely existent on the disk, but the uninstall information is seemingly incomplete, temp files are left around, and who knows what else.

 

I've only had the computer two weeks and the problem began in the midst of lots of updates and installations so I can't identify what started it.

 

Fairly random possibilities:

 

Windows .NET 2.0 update. -- I tried uninstalling it, but the problem remains.

 

Cyberlink Power DVD itself. -- Could the update that failed have broken something in Installshield or Windows Installer?

 

Uninstalling AOL (several items), Netzero, WildTangent, etc. -- This shouldn't break anything, but I'm paranoid after an even weirder glitch: Uninstalling the Earthlink setup files (not even Earthlink itself) caused the audio/video "Practice" items in Windows Help to not play. As improbable as this sounds, I confirmed it by using the restore partition and uninstalling junk items until I repeated it. Uninstalling the Earthlink setup files from Add/remove broke it.

 

A bad .msi installer?

 

Getright?

 

- Andrew

 

I figured it out, for me at least. I can't imagine this is what's causing it in every instance I've read about around the internet, though. It was the Trend Micro AntiSpam Outlook Express Monitor (TMAS_OEMon.exe) running in the background even when the antivirus program was turned off. I knew that antivirus programs can cause problems with installations, so I'd tried turning it off, but that wasn't enough. I ended up opening task manager and ending as many processes as I could to see if one of them was causing it, which I now realize probably should have been the first thing I tried instead of the last. (Better than messing up who knows what with one driver update after another.)

 

So, if you have Trend Micro PC-cillin installed from Dell, that's probably it. If not, try going to task manager (right click the taskbar or press ctrl-shift-esc) and end as many of the items in the processes list (not applications) as seem inessential. You can search for the filename (and then read the file properties) to get an idea of what a particular one is. I doubt anything bad can come of ending processes that a restart can't fix.

 

The way to do it would probably be to end as many as you can in order to see if that's where the problem is, and then if the installer works, end one at a time to figure out exactly which one it is.

 

- Andrew