Windows Installer CleanUp Utility

Martin — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 09:30:19 +0000

It can happen that a installation in Windows fails. Reasons for it failing can be numerous from mundane reasons like running out of hard disk space to more serious ones that include Registry corruption or crashes. One problem that can arise from a failed software installation are installation leftovers that can not only impact disk size but also stability and performance of the computer system.

The Windows Installer CleanUp Utility has been developed by Microsoft as a tool to clean a computer system after a failed installation of a software program using the Windows installer. The computer program will display a list of all applications that have been installed using Windows Installer giving the user the option to remove their installers properly from the computer system.

It is possible to select one or multiple programs from the list for removal. The cleanup program will then remove the installation files from the computer system so that it can be removed or installed properly. Microsoft advises to not use the program to cleanup Office 2007 installers this way. The reason for this is that it can happen that installers can become corrupted so that it becomes impossible to remove the program from the operating system.

The Windows Installer CleanUp Utility is compatible (via 4 Sysops) with 32-bit and 64-bit editions of the Windows operating system.

Tags: installation, installer, microsoft software, software installer, windows installer, Windows Installer CleanUp Utility, windows software

MSI or EXE Setup

Martin — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 19:47:10 +0000

Some software programs are unpacked to both an msi ans exe setup file. If you are a end user you might wonder which to execute to install the application properly. Chance is that you tried both ways at least once and noticed that clicking the msi or the exe setup file would install the application properly. The setup.exe that you encounter in lots of software distributions is called a bootstrapper. This setup.exe file will check if the computer system is capable of running the software program; If it is it will initiate msiexec.exe which will launch the installation using the msi file.

Users who double-click on the msi file directly will also install the application but with the possibility that it will not run properly on the computer system. Take a computer program that requires the Microsoft .net Framework 3.5 for example. If the user has an older version of the framework installed setup.exe will download the files needed and launch the installation of the compatible framework and launch the installation using the msi file afterwards.

If the user installs using the msi file the installation will go through without problems but might experience an application crash or warning message while starting the application. It is therefor recommend on end user systems to always install applications using the setup.exe file if both a setup.exe and xyz.msi are available after unpacking the software program.

There are even some msi setup files out there that will not perform the installation upon execution but request an installation using the setup.exe file instead to ensure that all necessary components are installed.

Tags: bootstrapper, exe, installer, Knowledge, msi, setup.exe, software installation, tutorial, windows installer, windows setup

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Windows Installer CleanUp Utility

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MSI or EXE Setup

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