Change DCOM Impersonation level?

Question

I have WinXP Pro and after doing a WinXP Update and an Office XP update, I ran System Restore because of wanting to get rid of one of the WinXP updates. That got rid of my Office Update too, so I tried to run Office Update again and Office Update would not scan for updates. The error said "Unable to check for Updates on this computer". I've contacted Dell software support by email and they suggested run "System File checker"--which I did with no result. Then they said do System Restore to before any of the recent updates--which I did with no result. Then they want me to do the WinXP "Repair Installation". I'm worried about doing that. So I tried to do an Office XP "Repair" from the Add/Remove Programs utility and got another error message...."This patch could not be opened. Verify that the patch package exists and that you can acess it or contact the app. vendor to verify that this is a valid Windows Installer patch package."

I found that error message under Microsoft Knowledge Base Article-324906. It talks about the DCOM default possibly being set to Anonymous, or the system does not have Full permissions to the folder it's trying to access...

I don't know how to set permissions. I'm the only user on my computer with WinXP Pro. I have ver. 2 of Windows Installer which it says does not work if the DCOM default impersonation level is set to Anonymous. There is a Windows Installer repair utility, but it doesn't work on ver. 2. Tried to follow microsoft instructions on setting impersonation level, but my WinXP Pro's Property screens seemed to be different than what is in their examples, and I don't know how to do it.

I still don't know if this is a Windows problem or an Office XP problem! I can do Windows XP updates with no problem. If I download the current Office XP update direct from their download page, without them scanning for it, it won't install either....error: "Hotfix Installer encountered a problem." The only problem I have encountered is I can't update OFFICE.

HELP!

JRosenfeld · Answer

That article refers to W2000. I'm not sure that the fix would work in XP, although, as I understand it Windows Installer version 2 is the same in both. Have you tried the methods proposed in 324906? Method 1 requires that you have dcomcnfg, not sure whether that is part of XP Pro, as I have XP home. But method 2 should, i believe be possible in XP Pro (you should have the security tab if you right click on C:\, properties, I think).

It is probable that the Windows installer or the relevant keys in the registry have got corrupted. Although the error message is different, I would try the changes suggested for XP in

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;315353&Product=winxp

You could also enable logging of Windows installer to see if the log gives further clues:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;314852&Product=winxp

You could also try downloading and installing Windows installer 2

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=4b6140f9-2d36-4977-8fa1-6f8a0f5dca8f&displaylang=en

Denny Denham · Answer

I provided a different possible solution here. The first link in JRosenfeld's post is probably the most likely repair. The download link is for NT and 2000 and will not work for XP.

XP Professional does have dcomcnfg.exe.

1dee1doug · Answer

JRosenfeld:  No, when I right click on C:\ and then Properties, all the tabs are: General, Tools, Hardware, Sharing and Quota. That's why I said I couldn't do Method 2.

JRosenfeld · Answer

Thanks for the correction.

Windows General

Change DCOM Impersonation level?

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