Program Installing Problem

justincredibleg

New Member
Hey. I was installing a program the other day and my computer locked up. I had to do a hard restart by holding in the power button and when i turned the computer back on and tried to reinstall it said,

"Sorry, installer was unable to start up. This may be due to lack of hard drive space." or something like that.

I have over 120 gigs of space so i know that isnt the reason. I tried installing several other things and nothing worked.

Please help. Thanks in advanced.
 
Anything i tried to install. Spybot, Guild Wars, Sim City, Spy Bot. All kinds of things. It is like the install utility is gone or screwed up or something. Is it a part of windows that i can download and reinstall?
 
You could try to repair the windows console. If you have the disk then you would simply boot with the rom in and select install and it will give you the option to repair.
 
Generally after a bad shutdown check disk(MS disk checking utility) will immediately come up asking if you want the volume checked for errors. The "chkdsk /f, chkdsk /p/r" commands can be entered at the command prompt to have Windows perform this the next time the system is started up. But that doesn't prevent any programs from installing as a firewall or anti-virus would be more likely a problem there.

Damaged or crosslinks to essential system files by an installer can cause problems like this to come up. The system file checker utility started by typing "sfc /scannow" at the Run prompt off of the Start menu is XP's method for repair and replaciing damaged or missing system files. If you are currently running XP you would need the installation cd when the sfc requests that for verifying system files before copying replacements to the drive. The installer itself was most likely the source of the problems being seen. The sfc and a good cleaner for the system registry later could be advised here.
 
1)put cd rom in
2)restart
3)go into setup at boot and check if your first boot option is cd-rom
4)if yes press f10 and exit and save, if no make it so.
5)continue to install, select install and then press r or somert to reapir it will tell you at the bottom.
6)work thought set up
7)test if working.


Hope this helps

Tim
 
Ok guys still no luck. When ever i try to install some things it just pops up the error report thing and in the technical info it always includes a file that the setup creates in my

'C:documents~\justin~\localsettings\temp' folder.

I delete the file and it comes back again. Im sure the file isnt the issue b/c it is a dif cause for each program/game.

I wasnt able to do boot off windows cd thing b/c it only gave me the option of going to the recovery console. Any other suggestions would be great.

hope that helps. Thanks
 
Before attemping a repair install you may want to backup any files out of the Program Files, MyDocs+Settings, and even screensaver, added wavs, bmps, etc. files out of the Windows directory there too to one or more temp folders. To force the system to boot from the cd you would go into the bios itself and assign the 1st boot device to cd rom and disable all others. When booting afterwards choose the install now by pressing enter option not the "R" for repair. Hopefully you will later see the option to repair the current installation rather then deleting it for a new one. A good article written on this should be reviewed at http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/XPrepairinstall.htm

EDIT: I thought I would add this link in here since it has a good number of tips for repairing XP before that gets wiped for a new one. http://www.webtree.ca/windowsxp/repair_xp.htm http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/xp.htm
 
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Installer clean up

Sound like the last install srewed the MSI engine. Search Microsoft for the install clean up utility. Use the util to remove the half installed software.
 
justincredibleg said:
Ok guys still no luck. When ever i try to install some things it just pops up the error report thing and in the technical info it always includes a file that the setup creates in my

'C:documents~\justin~\localsettings\temp' folder.

I delete the file and it comes back again. Im sure the file isnt the issue b/c it is a dif cause for each program/game.

I wasnt able to do boot off windows cd thing b/c it only gave me the option of going to the recovery console. Any other suggestions would be great.

hope that helps. Thanks

You didn't see the option to "press enter now to install Windows"? When going into the bios to set the boot order set the first as the cd rom and disable the rest. This will force a boot from the XP cd where you should come up to the screen with the two options to either press "R" to repair with the recovery console or press the enter key at that time to install Windows. Once you started the installed process you may even see the option to repair the current installation. This will allow you to perform an "install to repair" as outlined in a few online articles like these.
http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/XPrepairinstall.htm
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;315341&Product=winxp
http://helpdesk.its.uiowa.edu/windows/instructions/repairinstall.htm
 
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