View Agent on XP SP3 fails with Windows Installer returned '1601'...

[christas]

Hello,

I attempted to install the view agent on a windows xp vm, which will be serving as my base 'template' for the view linked-clone desktops, and the process failed almost immediately with "An error occured installing the package. Windows Installer returned '1601'.

I am using ESXi 5.0.1, vCenter Server 5.0, Composer 5.0 [these run on a windows server 2008 R2 vm], the connection server at 5.0 on another windows server 2008 R2 vm. I am not using the transport server or security server at this time...

The vm in question is an XP SP3 machine, and all of the above are on a MS domain.

One thing I noticed that was odd, was in the control panel, the view agent does show as being installed, and when I go to remove it, it says it can't because it doesn't exist!! I have installed it on this machine and removed it... now however, it's giving these issues.

ok, the last 'one more thing'... this morning, when opening the vSphere client to access the vm, the summary page asked me if I had moved or copied the vm... could this also be related to the odd machine behavior?

Thanks in advance for your help!

[JCL225]

Sounds like the windows installer is goofed up though not necessarily 'corrupted'.

I'm willing to bet you can't install any other program or application either.

Try re registering the windows (msi) installer

From a command line enter

msiexec /unregister       ->hit enter ( you will not see anything on screen)

msiexec /regserver  -> hit enter (you will not see anything either)

Try to install again.

If that doesn't work, see if you can download an install a new version of windows installer from Microsoft. I think 4.5 was the last for XP.