Windows Installer Error Opening Installation Log File Verify That The

Recently, I was investigating a strange uninstall issue on a co-worker’s computer. They tried to uninstall a build of an MSI-based product we are working on by using the entry in the Programs and Features control panel. When doing so, an error dialog with the following text appeared almost immediately:

Are you having issues with the installer failing and/or shooting out various errors causing the app from installing? Though not intentional, there may be various issues that can cause the installation process to fail. Here are some general troubleshooting techniques that can help get you locked and loaded. Windows Installer: Error opening installation log file. Verify that the specified log file location exists and is writable. Custom Client Install Setting 'Enable Install Logging' is changed to a path including%PROGRAMFILES% or%COMMONPROGRAMFILES%. These variables are. Simply open the drive that your OS is loaded on which is usually C:/ and go to C:/Windows/Installer, locate the.msi file that is lauching the installer and delete it. If you hoover over the.msi files then you should get a brief description of what the file is going to install on your system.

Error opening installation log file. Verify that the specified location exists and is writable.

Further investigation showed the following additional data:

• Manually uninstalling the MSI manually by using msiexec.exe succeeded
• Attempting to use the Programs and Features control panel to uninstall any other MSI that was installed on the computer failed with the same error message, so we knew that the problem was not specific to our installer.

Windows Installer Error Opening Installation Log File

Windows Installer Package Error

After a bit of investigation, I found the knowledge base article at http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2564571. That article lists a simple workaround for this error – stop and restart the process named explorer.exe using Task Manager. We tried it out, and it ended up working. Hopefully this will be useful in case others run into this error message in the future.