[TheN]

Okay, as my computer specs say, I'm running a Gateway P-6860FX laptop with Vista Home Premium 64-bit. I've been having problems installing programs for a long time now, and finally think I've narrowed down the source:

My computer absolutely refuses to install the Microsoft Visual C++ 2005 Redistributable package, which is a prerequisite installation for, it seems, most games. Notable exceptions to this appear to be things like "The Sims 3" and "Spore" as well as "Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning." However, 90% of the games I attempt to install on this gaming laptop fail for this reason.

When I open up the CD files of a game to see the culprit (a certain vcredist_x86, the Redistributable installer) and try to install it, I get this error message:
"The installer has enountered an unexpected error installing this package. This may indicate a problem with this package. The error code is 2330."

Of course, the game itself notifies me with different error messages when it hangs up at this point. Two of them, in fact, one after the other:

"Error 2330.Error getting file attributes: C:\Windows\Installer\$PatchCache$\Managed\058A22391909E0D42B25E328DE3A9DA4. GetLastError: 1392"

"Error: -1603 Fatal error during installation.

Consult Windows Installer Help (Msi.chm) or MSDN for more information."

If there is a way to fix this irritating problem without reinstalling the OS (I left the disk at home, and may as well wait to install it on the home computer in, what, 2 1/2 weeks, and just give up on this otherwise beautiful gaming laptop), please let me know. This laptop was a present to me, and runs games very, very well when they actually work - I can't let this go to waste!

[TheN]

I'm not sure where to put this, in all honesty, so I apologize. Technically, it refers to software, but I believe is also a case of Vista-stupidity, so I stuck it here.

[TheN]

UPDATE - for some unknown reason, Microsoft Visual C++ 2005 Redist. shows up on my programs and features list. It won't uninstall (I tried, to see if it was a failed installation or something) and it said "The feature you are trying to use is on a network resource that is unavailable. Click OK to try again or enter an alternate path to a folder containing...."
The "box below" contains the source:

C:\Users\ADMINI~1\AppData\Local\Temp\IXP001.TMP\

After clicking OK, it pretty much loops back to the same thing after trying again. When clicking cancel, an error informs me that:

"The installation source for this product is not valid. Verify that the source exists and that you can access it."

After searching for C:\Users, there was no "ADMINNI~1", but there was "Nigel," the Admin profile. Got to TEMP, but there is no such thing as IXP001.TMP according to Vista's search or a manual scroll down to the "I" section.

[Elvandil]

The file would be at C:\Users\ADMINI~1\AppData\Local\Temp\IXP001.TMP\ and hidden.

If you have used a registry cleaner, you may have damaged your system. Try restoring anything it removed. This includes apps like Norton WinDoctor and similar.

But if you have deleted temp files, it is gone by now.

Try using the Windows Installer CleanUp Utility to remove references to the program and then use MyUninstaller if it still appears in Add/Remove. Right-click it in MyUninstaller and remove the entry.

Reboot and try again to install.

[TheN]

I tried to install the CleanUp Utility, and it is giving me the same 2330, 1392 error. I have definitely screwed something up on this computer. I may be able to fix this without the Vista disk by using the earliest restore point but there is really no guarantee on that.... still, I may try.

[TheN]

System restore doesn't go back far enough, actually. Only about a month and a half. On an interesting, note, though, I've discovered that my computer completely lacks a C:\Windows\Installer folder... unless, of course, it only shows up during installation, in which case that would be perfectly normal....