Windows Installer startup error 14007

Today I have troubleshooted a system (Windows XP SP2) with a Windows Installer error. The error reported both in Event logs (System log) is

The Windows Installer service terminated with the following error:
The requested lookup key was not found in any active activation context.

When manually (with services.msc) trying to start the service the following error comes up:

Could not start the Windows Installer service on <computername>.
Error 14007: The requested lookup key was not found in any active activation context.

The problem seems to relate to Windows Installer not correctly registered on the computer. Running the following commands solved the issue:

%systemroot%\system32\msiexec.exe /unregserver
%systemroot%\system32\msiexec.exe /regserver

9 comments:

Unknown said...

Hey!

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Thanks and keep up this nice blog!

Anonymous said...

Thanx, you solve my problem with more then 30 computers!

Anonymous said...

thank you solved my problem on a domain computer!!

Anonymous said...

This is the most simple clear cut answer i ever found on internet. Thanks a lot buddy.

Anonymous said...

THANK YOU

Amir Sajjad said...

Thanks, it solved my problem. Keep it up

Anonymous said...

Thank you for that very clear, concise, and correct fix!!

Anonymous said...

Wonderful, immediate fix. Many thanks for posting.

Anonymous said...

I am having this issue on every computer in a Windows 2003 domain. It must be related to the Group Policy but I don't know how or where to fix it. Your fix does temporarily solve the problem on each workstation but after a reboot, I have to run the two commands again to install software. Any idea how this can be fixed globally on the domain controller? Thanks!