On starting Microsoft Office and some other programs the Windows Installer appears and seems to reinstall the program. How can I stop this from occurring as it slows down the opening of these programs and is quite frustrating? The computer is running Windows 7.

This is quite a difficult problem to solve since it generally relates to some program on your computer causing some corruption or misconfiguration in the Windows Installer utility (which is responsible for mediating the installation of most Windows software on your computer). It is interesting that you mention Microsoft Office is exhibiting this problem since many users have reported that the problem occurs with Microsoft Office (but not other programs). Even though this is different to the issue which you are experiencing, since it happens with Microsoft Office plus other programs, we should still explore this avenue since it is entirely possible that Microsoft Office is the root cause and affecting other programs which have also been installed using the Windows Installer utility.

As per normal troubleshooting steps, you should first try reinstalling Microsoft Office to see whether that resolves the problem (as perhaps it was due to a corrupt file or because the original installation of Office did not complete properly). It would also be useful when reinstalling Office to install all components of Office on your computer. During the installation you should be asked to select which components you wish to install, and the less common components can be excluded (to save hard drive space) and only installed on-demand when they first need to be used. However, something could have gone awry and Office wants to install those every time the program is opened causing the Windows Installer to appear. This should be eliminated as a possibility by installing all components. Most modern computers have plenty of hard drive space so the relatively marginal increase in the required amount of drive space to install all components hopefully should not put too much of a constraint on the remaining space on the hard drive. Once the installation has finished you should also check whether any updates are available for your version of Office. If you are using Windows 7 then updates for Office (and other Microsoft products) should be downloaded automatically through Windows Update, although it would be worthwhile checking that this setting is enabled. Go to the Start menu > “Control Panel” and click “System and Security”. On the next screen click “Windows Update” and you will be presented with the Windows Update status. Check that “You receive updates” is showing “For Windows and other products from Microsoft Update”. If that is not correct then click the “Change settings” link in the left-hand pane and tick “Give me updates for Microsoft products and check for new optional Microsoft software when I update Windows” then click OK to save the changes. In either case, when you are on the main Windows Update screen if there are pending updates, click the “Install updates” button. Alternatively, if there are no pending updates, click “Check for updates”. If this button is not visible then it likely means that Windows is configured for fully automated updating so there is no need to manually check for updates. Once everything appears to be up-to-date check whether Office (and the other programs experiencing problems) now open without launching the Windows Installer.

When attempting the previous procedure to uninstall Microsoft Office you may have encountered the problem that you were not able to uninstall the program through the Add/Remove Programs control panel. Alternatively, if the reinstallation did not resolve the problem then it is also possible that Office is not uninstalling from your computer correctly so the problem remains. There is an article on Microsoft Knowledge Base (support.microsoft.com/kb/290301) which deals with the situation where you are unable to uninstall Office from the computer. Scroll down the page and you will see a series of “Microsoft Fix it” utilities for all the different versions of Office. If you run one of these, for the relevant version of Office installed on your computer, then it should completely uninstall Office. Once this has finished, check whether the problem continues. If so, then the root cause of the problem is not likely related to Office since the problem should have stopped after the uninstallation. However, if the problem does stop then it seems we have found the culprit. At this point reinstall Office again and hopefully the problem will still be resolved since the proper uninstall of Office should have cleared the cause of the problem.

Should you find that the problem continues after uninstalling Office then something else appears to be the cause. Diagnosing this particular issue is complicated by the number of different programs on your computer which could have triggered the problem. However, there is a method we can use which may assist in narrowing down the cause. A previous column discussed usage of the Windows Event Viewer. This is essentially the Windows log which details informational and error messages relating to Windows and the applications running within Windows. Hopefully this should also shed some light on the application which is causing the Windows Installer to launch. Before we look at the logs we need to trigger the problem so that an event will be logged. Open one of the programs which causes the Windows Installer to launch and then go through the motions so that the Windows Installer completes. Once this has happened we hopefully have an event to view in the Event Viewer. Go to the Start menu then right-click on “Computer” and select “Manage”. In the Computer Management window that appears, expand “System Tools” > “Event Viewer” > “Windows Logs” > “Application”. Look through the list of events and check whether there are any which occurred at the time when the Windows Installer was running or, even better, if any of the events specifically relate to the Windows Installer. If you do not have any luck with such events in the Application log then click the “System” and “Setup” logs to check whether there is anything of interest in those. Eventually you should find an event which relates to the Windows Installer. Look at the details for the event and this may give you some useful information on a program or process which the Windows Installer is acting upon. However, before getting too excited I would suggest that you repeat this experiment by running a different program which has the same problem. View the logged event in that situation and, if it logs the same program or process, then you have found the specific problematic application.

While this does not directly give us a solution it does provide very valuable information for our problem solving. You could try an interest search for the symptoms (“Windows Installer”) together with the name of the program or process which appears in the Event Viewer log. It is highly likely that other users have also experienced the same issue so hopefully there will be suggestions which you can try to fix the problem. Alternatively, if you are still having difficulty finding information on resolving the problem then please feel free to contact me again with the additional information you have discovered and I will also conduct some further research.