Fix DLL Could Not Be Run for MSI Installers

dllwindows-installer

dll could not be run

I'm guessing its a problem with Windows Installer. I've tried restarting the service but to no effect. I'm not able to install anything that ends with .msi. Sometimes I get such an error message:

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Event viewer logs:

Python installer:

Product: Python 2.7.3 — Error 1723. There is a problem with this
Windows Installer package. A DLL required for this install to complete
could not be run. Contact your support personnel or package vendor.
Action CheckDir, entry: _CheckDir@4, library:
C:\Users\x\AppData\Local\Temp\MSI570C.tmp

SSDLife installer:

Product: SSDlife Pro — Error 1723. There is a problem with this
Windows Installer package. A DLL required for this install to complete
could not be run. Contact your support personnel or package vendor.
Action WIX_TestVersion, entry: WIX_TestVersion, library:
C:\Users\x\AppData\Local\Temp\MSIA32E.tmp

Searching on error 1723: This error can occur if you have an out-of-date version of Windows Installer

I got a couple of links for Windows Installer but neither of them has Windows 7 on the list of supported operating systems.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=25 and

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=8483&WT.mc_id=MSCOM_EN_US_DLC_DETAILS_131Z4ENUS22007

Windows(7 x64) is up to date.

Also tried this Fixit: http://support.microsoft.com/mats/Program_Install_and_Uninstall

But it couldn't find any issues.

Best Answer

I ran into this issue, too. Alexey Ivanov's response didn't quite help me, but it did, however, inspire me to investigate C:\Users\x\AppData\Local\Temp.

As usual, error messages were only half-useful. In my case, the DLL wasn't missing--the installer didn't have permissions to access the folder. I didn't try running the installer as an administrator--this didn't make sense to me considering I was already using an admin account and would have expected UAC to handle privileges elevation. Anyway, like many things in Windows, this whole thing is a bit of a mystery to me.

Nevertheless, after going to Properties > Security on the C:\Users\x\AppData\Local\Temp folder and giving that Everyone the Full control permission, installers that previous had been failing now worked! Hooray! Since Everyone already had Read and Write access, I suspect that Full control also added a necessary Execute permission.

What I wonder, now, is how this happened in the first place, and what the correct permissions on this directory are supposed to be.

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