The most common Windows Installer error message you get is the Windows Installer could not be accessed, or its missing or its damaged/corrupted. The others are when Windows Installer tries to update protected Windows system file, could not set a shortcut file, etc… for these errors the software publisher needs to fix the Windows installer. For common errors which are not from the buggy installer, this article talks about how you can go about fixing it yourself. The Windows Installer error I am going to talk about are as follows,

Windows Installer error 1601, 1603, 1719 and 1721.

Windows Installer error 1601

This error is same as Windows Installer Error 1719, and the resolving methods are same as well, but I will list the top ones here.

To fix Windows Installer error 1601, make sure the Windows Installer Service is enabled, and is registered and is updated to the latest version.

1.To check whether the Windows Installer service is Disabled.

1. Click Start, type services.msc in the start search box and press enter.
2. In the Services (Local) list, right-click Windows Installer, and then click Properties.
3. If the Startup type drop-down list is set to a value of Disable, select the Manual option from the Startup type drop-down list.
4. Click on Start button below the heading service status and click OK.

2.Re-register the windows installer

1. Click Start, open the run box (windows key +R)
2. Type msiexec.exe /unreg and click ok.
3. If you receive a confirmation message, click OK again.
4. Click Start, open the run box (windows key +R)
5. Type msiexec /regserver and click ok.
6. If you receive a confirmation message, click OK again.
7. Try to install the application and see if the issue persists.
8. If you still get the error then try next method.

3. Update your Windows Installer.

Download the latest version of windows installer and install It on your computer.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/942288

4. Run a Registry Repair Tool to Fix Windows Installer Registry entries.

Windows Installer Registry Fix Tool

Windows Installer error 1603

After Error 1603 throws up, the installation rolls back ie. reverses its process and deletes all file that are copied and reverts back all the changes made. Thus the installation aborts with a roll back.

To fix this error 1603, follow the steps to resolve the individual causes of error 1603,

1. The folder you may be trying to install to is  encrypted. It means that the folder that is accessible is protected so that it cannot be easily accessed. Try to install on the folder that is not encrypted.
2. The drive that holds the folder that you are trying to install to is accessed as a substitute drive. Try using the Windows that is installed on the regular partition on your hard drive.
3. Make you sure the user has administrative privileges to perform installation. Administrators will always have full control permissions and will rarely if ever see this error pop up. It is important that the installation process be granted full control permission. You can do this by going to Properties and then Security tab and clicking on the Full Control option at the Permissions section.
4. Windows Installer is  corrupted. To fix that, run a Windows Installer fix tool.

Windows Installer error 1719

See this article: Windows Installer Error 1719. Also read “The Windows Installer service could not be accessed” error message when installing Office.

Windows Installer error 1721

“Error 1721. There is a problem with this Windows Installer package. A program required for this install to complete could not be run. Contact your support personnel or package vendor”

The reason for this error is when installation process is missing administrator privileges.

To resolve error 1721, Run the installer with Administrator privileges.

1. Click on Vista Start button.
2. In the Start Search box, type in Command Prompt or Cmd.
3. Right click on the Cmd or Command Prompt that appears in the search result listing.
4. In the right click menu, click on Run as Administrator menu item.

Now type msiexec /i application.msi, you will type msiexec /i Javasetup.msi if you are trying to install Javasetup.msi.
Command syntax to uninstall a program with its .msi: msiexec /x application.msi

Those are command line (Run as administrator) installation and uninstallation for Windows Installer.

The annoying thing about this is You always keep clicking “Restart Later” as the progress bar shows the progression of how soon your computer will be restarted. Though you have about 5 minutes, if you are away from the computer, you might loose some unsaved work.

Even more annoying is even if you click “Restart Later” is comes again Nagging you every 10 minutes. So This article talks about how to stop windows update tool to prompt a restart.

How to Stop Automatic Updates from Restarting your PC

To do this,

1. Click Start, Run, type CMD, to open the command prompt.

 If you are in Vista,

Click Start, in the search box, type cmd

2. In the Command Prompt window, Type net stop wuauserv and Enter.

That’s it.

You can also do this process very simply.

Very Simple way to Execute net stop wuauserv

Step 1

Your first step is to open Notepad. (Start > Run > Notepad > OK)

Step 2

Type net stop wuauserv and Save it as netstop.bat

What we doing here, is creating a Windows batch file, saving it as .bat. I am saving this in the Desktop. You can save it the location you like. Double clicking to open the batch file, executes whatever in there, as if we are typing it in the command prompt. And remember to save .bat files, as All Files in the Save as type: You can create a batch file in this way to execute anything that you would type in a command prompt. This is simple, you don’t need to open command prompt every time and type the command to execute it. Just double-click opening it will execute the command.

Step 3

Next step is to double-click on the netstop.bat that we created in the Step 2 to open. Open will execute the command. Let’s do that now, to execute the command net stop wuauserv

When ever Automatic Updates prompts you to restart, you can just double-click and it executes and exits. And Exits the Automatic Updates as well. But don’t disable the automatic update permanently. To turn it back on, you need to enable it again. Let’s Microsoft find updates for us, when ever it can. I recommend to leave the Automatic Updates  on. It helps save you a lot of trouble in the future. Like a problem arises just because you don’t have an hotfix or a patch. Automatic Updates gets you this as soon as they release it.

Let’s get to work, and stop these ‘midnight windows patches” restart nag, disappear with a double-click!

Cyclic Redundancy Check or CRC is a mathematical calculation to determine errors quickly during a data transmission such as when reading, copying and writing. Every file carries a CRC check value to it, and when transferring, the CRC is performed, if the values doesn’t match the error is triggered.

CRC usually denotes a bad sector in the hard disk. This is due to the damaged file in the hard disk or external storage medium such as CD, DVD or USB drive. Cyclic Redundancy Check makes sure that during copying files, the one with error doesn’t get copied so as to prevent the fault file getting stored. It doesn’t fix it. It aborts the data transmission process. Hence the files from corrupted Hard disk, USB drive, CD or DVD doesn’t get copied to where you want.

We’ll now talk about what causes this error and how to deal with each of them.

The Causes of Cyclic Redundancy Check Error and How to Fix them?

External causes that affect the storage medium.

A partially burnt CD or DVD triggers this error. These external/removable storage mediums like CD and DVD get easily exposed to dirt, scratches and other physical damaged. This also triggers this error. A bad spot in them destroys the file that is stored on there. If its just a file, it alone is corrupted. It depends where the bad spot is, to recover files from them. Marking on CDs and DVDs, worst case, sticking a label on write/read surface doesn’t let file to written on them.

So, damage before and after the data is stored is responsible for CRC errors. Error when reading from the bad spot and Error when writing to the bad spot.

Don’t stick labels on data surface, don’t write anything on them, keep them in the case free of dirt, scratches etc… Use a data recovery program to recover when you need images or important documents to be recovered from a damaged disk.

Failed Hardware.

We talked about disks, now its time for the drives. Even after making sure the disks or removable storage mediums is not fully or partially damaged, the problem also lies in the drives that access them. When a new disk is inserted to write data on them and CRC error is shown, its sure that the problem is on the hardware. It’s important to clean the CD or DVD drive with a lens cleaner disks. I’d replace them on constant failures.

Failed Softwares.

You see an error message that says “Invalid Win32 application” or “Invalid Windows file” because these Windows system files are corrupted, it can due to the frequent system crashes, incomplete file as a result of incomplete copying or downloading of these files, or a buggy application. The CRC doesn’t let accessing those files.

Make sure these files are downloaded completely. The default browser download manager or 3rd party ones lets you know if these files are incompletely downloaded.

Run a disk check to fix corrupted data in the hard disk. When you are prompted to run a disk check on boot, don’t skip that step! Let the disk check program find and fix the corrupted file.

Role of a registry optimizer

Its important to remove malicious registry keys relating to CD or DVD drives. Some malware target CD/DVD drives, lock them to prevent using a system restore or repair disk to scan and find them. Using Anti-spyware or anti-malware programs can help, but to manage the Windows registry I recommend investing on a Registry optimizer tool such as Registry Booster from Uniblue. Not all registry optimizers are the same. I personally use Registry Booster and like it.

Csrss.exe is the Windows system executable files for Microsoft Client Server Runtime Server Subsystem. Since it is a system file, it is located at the system path, C:\Windows\System32.

What Csrss.exe does?

The purpose of this file is to manage graphical instruction sets for the Operating systems from Windows NT to Windows 7 now. This main application of this file is controlling processes. It is a process controller. It creates, removes and schedules process threads as per the requirement of the Operating system. Threads is a subset of a process, meaning small 32-bit or 64-bit executable codes that a processor can handle is scheduled by Csrss.exe file. When an application runs, if it runs multi-threaded, there are several threads, that makes the process.

From the wikipedia page,

To give an analogy, multiple threads in a process are like multiple cooks reading off the same cook book and following its instructions, not necessarily from the same page.

Csrss.exe is like the manager of those chefs.

But why do you need to remove such a file?

When it’s a malware disguising in the name of csrss.exe and more than one instances of it are running which are not located in the Windows system path – C:\Windows\System32. You need to remove this malware with a tool I personally use and recommend – MalwareBytes.

How to identify if it’s a malware?

Click to view in full size.

As you can see from the process explorer screen shot, the Csrss.exe is currently taking less than 3000kb and its CPU usage is low. You can also see its location and its parent process.

So, with these things reinforced again, lets talk about how to identify if it’s a malware.

• If its location is not at C:\Windows\System32
• More than one instances of it are not located at the system path.
• And it consumes high percentage of CPU.
• It can even have the same file size as the legitimate version. The safest bet would be to scan the system with an anti-malware tool such as MalwareBytes.

Common Csrss.exe Error – Windows User Profile Corrupted (high CPU – exception case).

This problem of Csrss.exe is known to consume high CPU. This not due to any virus activity. This is an exception to the checklist that we use to determine if Csrss.exe is legitimate or not. This is due to a corrupted Windows user profile. You are viewing this site, logged on to your Windows user profile. The things that a Profile stores are My documents folder, Desktop folder, Favorites folder etc… If you happen to log on to a new profile you won’t be able to access those things from your old profile such as files on desktop, all files on your my documents folder, items on start menu, recent files and so on.

How to fix this problem?

The solution is to remove the corrupted profile and create a new one.

How to backup Windows User profile?

You maybe wondering how to backup those data in the other profiles? You can do it with Datagrab.

Ok you have taken a back up your user profile, all those files associated with it.

The next step is the remove it and create a new one. Lets go though those steps now,

1. Make sure everything is backed up, and saved in an external disk or USB drive.
2. Now, log off of your user account.
3. Log in as administrator.
4. Right click My computer on the desktop or start menu, click properties.
5. Navigate to the Advanced Tab as shown in the image below.
6. Under User profile, click settings as highlighted in the red,
7. Select the profile which is corrupted, and delete it.
8. Restart the system.
9. A new profile is created next time you log on to the system. You can restore the backed up files. Alternatively, you can create a new profile before the Step 8, which is before restarting the system.

To know this, lets understand how Windows vista and Windows 7, and any Windows OS that is released after Windows Vista loads up after switching the computer power on.

As soon as you switch the computer power on > BIOS is  loaded > which loads MBR (Master boot record) from hard disk or usb drive > Which then loads Boot sector (the portion on the hard disk or usb drive) > which then executes Boot Manager which is Bootmgr file!

It then finds active partition on the disk to read boot configuration data which loads the Windows Vista or Window 7!

So now, you understand what part does bootmgr play in loading up the OS.

The problem – Bootmgr is missing!

When Bootmgr is missing, you see the boot process is stopped right at the Boot sector which is unable to find the Boot manager. Boot Manager is now unable to invoke winload.exe file to load ntoskrnl.exe (OS kernel) and device drivers (boot drivers)!

You can see from the screenshot above that winload.exe is unable to load.

The solution – How to fix “Bootmgr is missing”

As you can see the solution is evident from the above screen grab.

1. Set your computer to boot from DVD (using the Boot setting in the BIOS).
2. Insert Windows Vista or Windows 7 DVD.
3. Restart the computer.
4. After booting from the DVD, the installation screen prompts you to choose Languages to install, Time and currency format and keyboard or input method. The values would be for ex. English, English (United States) and US respectively. Click Next to continue.
5. Now instead of proceeding to install, look for the link in the lower left hand corner, “Repair your computer”. Click on it.
6. You need the select the correct installation directory to repair if you have more than 1 installation of Windows Vista or 7. Then click next.
7. You are now taken to the “System recovery options”. Click the first one in the list, Startup Repair.
   
8. The installation program now repairs the Operating system, fixing the Bootmgr in the process. When its done, restart and the error is gone!

Note: You can alternatively execute the boot repair from the command window. Just insert DVD and choose command prompt. Type bootrec /fixboot as shown in the screen grab below,

Driver errors can happen due to many reasons:

1. Missing resource file.
2. Corrupted or invalid registry entry.
3. Incompatibility with the current OS.
4. A bad designed device driver.
5. Instable driver.

How to resolve Driver Errors?

1. First you can revert back to the older version of a driver and then upgrade to the latest version. This will fix up the faulty device driver. You can spot a faulty driver when a driver error occurs on the screen with an error code.Steps to roll back Driver
   1. Open Device manager window.
   2. Click on hardware tab > properties.
   3. Driver Tab > click Roll Back Driver to restore to old version.
   4. To upgrade, visit the driver’s website and download the latest version, and install it.
2. To Re-install Driver:
   To re-install it, go to Device manager > Select hardware > Right click on hardware > click uninstall. Restart your computer. Upon reboot, your PC will detect new hardware and asks you reinstall it.

If the above methods did not resolve your driver error, try system restore and restore it to few days earlier. If the problem isn’t solved yet, then change your hardware device.

How to Prevent Driver Errors?

1. Turn the windows auto update on to keep your OS updated with latest security hot fixes.
2. Update and schedule to run antivirus and antispyware periodically.
3. Invest in a Registry Optimizer Tool and schedule it to run it periodically, at least once in every 2 days.

The older version of the Activex Flash player has to be removed completely and in an order. You can manually uninstall it or use and automatic uninstaller. Let’s go through the manual removal process in detail here. This is a complete uninstall, not just the one that you do from the start/remove programs from the control panel.

1. The first step is to close all the running internet browsers.
2. Find flash.ocx using the windows search from the start menu.
3. Note down its file path. Ex. C:\windows\
4. Click on Start button > Type “regsvr32 filepath\flash.ocx /u (the file path is what you noted down in the step 3) Enter ok. Ok again at the confirmation prompt window. (if you haven’t entered the file path correctly, you get an error message! )
5. Now you have unregistered the flash activex program! Now search and delete the flash items that you don’t want!

Now let’s quickly go through the automatic uninstall process:

1. Download the flash uninstaller http://download.macromedia.com/pub/flashplayer/current/uninstall_flash_player.exe
2. Close all the running browsers and run it!

That is designed to automatically remove the flash component from your computer! This is a temporary solution for the Flash OCX errors! Now before installing the new version, I recommend you to clean your registry with a registry cleaner (see recommended tool above this article!). After running and fixing all the registry errors you can now be assured that you completely cleaned your registry of unwanted and invalid entries.

But it’s not sure that the newer version of the flash player will not give any OCX errors, so it’s recommended that you invest in a registry cleaner and resolve activex flash OCX errors completely!

“Windows cannot load the device driver for this hardware. The driver may be corrupted or missing. (Code 39)”

To automatically fix this problem, download the driver update installation file listed below and run the installation. This has been tested to resolve Error code 39.

1. Download Windows Driver Update – updates the drivers that manage your system.

To fix it yourself, the steps are given below,

Steps to fixing error code 39 For Windows Xp:

1. Using Device manager: Go to device manager: My computer > hardware tab > Device manager. Find the DVD/CD device with yellow exclamation. Right click, update device drive and reboot the pc.
2. Using Registry Editor: Go to Start menu > Type Run > Enter REGEDIT. Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\ Control\Class\ {4D36E965-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}.
3. Under Class, click {4D36E965-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}.
4. In the right pane (topic area), click UpperFilters. -> Now ignore the UpperFilter.bak file, as it’s only a backup entry, and only click the UpperFilters.
   
5. On the Edit menu, click Delete.
6. In the right pane (topic area), click LowerFilters. -> Now ignore the LowerFilter.bak file, as it’s only a backup entry, and only click the LowerFilters.
7. On the Edit menu, click Delete.

Reboot PC now!

Your DVD/CD device will be now visible and the yellow exclamation mark have gone now, else repeat the above steps.

Steps to fixing error code 39 For Windows Vista:

The First step is to Backup your registry. We are going to do that by creating a system restore point. To do that,

1. go to Start > type systempropertiesprotection in the start search box, and click enter.
2. Wait for the windows to search for disks and previous restore points.
3. Once you see the system properties dialog box, from the system protection tab, click create.
4. Enter the restore point name and click create. That’s it, you have backed up your system now including the registry.

The next step is to get back your missing DVD or CD driver. To do this follow the simple registry entry procedure

1. Go to Start > Run type regedit, to open the registry editor.
2. On the Registry Editor window, to the left side, Expand My Computer by clicking the [+] and then Expand HKey_Local_Machine by clicking the [+].
3. Expand SYSTEM by clicking the [+] , and then expand CurrentControlSet by clicking the [+].
4. Expand Control by clicking the [+], and then expand Class by clicking the [+].
5. Under Class, click {4D36E965-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}.
6. In the right pane (topic area), click UpperFilters. -> Now ignore the UpperFilter.bak file, as it’s only a backup entry, and only click the UpperFilters.
   
7. On the Edit menu, click Delete.
8. In the right pane (topic area), click LowerFilters. -> Now ignore the LowerFilter.bak file, as it’s only a backup entry, and only click the LowerFilters.
9. On the Edit menu, click Delete.
10. Close the Registry Editor and Restart your PC!

Preventing it further:

To prevent the further occurrences of any system error like error code 39 or 10 or anything. You need to the take the following precautions:

1. Download Windows Driver Update – updates the drivers that manage your system.
2. Update and schedule antivirus and antispyware check up periodically atleast once a week.
3. Get Error code 39 Fix – helps fix Error code 39 in your pc.
4. Investing in a Firewall if you haven’t already.
5. Turn Windows auto update on, so that you have the latest security patch.

1. The device cannot start. (Code 10)
2. This device is either not present, not working properly, or does not have all the drivers installed. (Code 10)

The problem:

The hardware keys of the device driver in problem contain the value “FailReasonString” put on the registry entry by the driver/enumerator. Error message 2 above because of this. If the the registry entry “FailReasonString” is not found then the Error message 1 above occurs! Why the hardware key changes?

1. If there is a conflict between 2 or more device drivers.
2. Corrupted driver files.
3. Hardware fails.

First things first:

You need to determine if the problem lies in your device or the driver attached to your device. If the driver installs and works fine then the device is defect. You need to change the device in this case. If not, look for the following methods to resolve it.

Steps to Resolve Error code 10:

1. Uninstall and update drivers. You can do that from going to control panel > Device manager > Locate Defect Device (usually with a yellow exclamation mark near to the icon) and then right click on it and uninstall the driver. Then reconnect the device and install the driver from the CD from scratch.
2. Turn on the Windows update so that it gets the latest security fixes.
3. Update your antivirus, antispyware and schedule it to run regularly.
4. Invest in a Registry Optimizer Tool and schedule it to run regularly!