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Vista – Windows installer service could not be accessed

Posted on : 06-12-2009 | By : chelfers | In : Computers, Windows Fixes

2

*facepalm*

What a mini nightmare this turned out to be, but after an hour of unsuccessful googled fixes we have a winner! Here is a brief list of what I tried and then the one that worked and made the most sense; sorry I don't have post-backs to where the information came from, and I do not take credit for any of these fixes.

Attempt 1

  • Boot into safemode ( f8 when restarting the computer )
  • Click Start, then click run ( or hit windows key + r ), then type cmd and click ok
  • Type in the following:

    • %windir%/system32/msiexec.exe /unregister
    • %windir%/syswow64/msiexec.exe /unregister
    • %windir%/system32/msiexec /regserver
    • %windir%/system32/msiexec /regserver
  • Reboot and try your install again

Attempt 2 - Little more advanced, please don't screw up your system

  • Click Start, then click run ( or hit windows key + r ), then type regedit and click ok
  • Navigate to [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\MSIServer\Enum]
  • The view pane should look like this:

    "0"="Root\\LEGACY_MSISERVER\\0000"
    "Count"=dword:00000001
    "NextInstance"=dword:00000001
  • If it looks similar right click Enum entry in the left pane tree and select delete
  • Reboot and try your install again

Attempt 3 - Little bit more advanced, be careful!

  • Click Start, then click run ( or hit windows key + r ), then type regedit and click ok
  • Navigate to [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\MSIServer]
  • Look for the key name DisplayName and make sure that the value is set as C:\WINDOWS\SysWOW64\msiexec.exe /V
  • If you change it reboot

Attempt 4 - this worked for me

- Click Start, then click run ( or hit windows key + r ), then type regedit and click ok
- Navigate to [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\MSIServer]
- Look for the key name WOW64, double click it and change the "Value data" to 0
- Reboot

In attempt 4, the WOW64 key value of 1 tells the installer to only deal with 32-bit installers and error on the rest, by changing this to 0 the system is now open to install 64-bit apps ( hopefully ) with less headaches.

Hope this helps someone!

CSS Arrows / Pointer Tutorial

Posted on : 02-12-2009 | By : chelfers | In : CSS, HTML, Web

2

Arrows, pointers, triangles, whatever you wish to call this technique you will end up making a pure CSS arrow; graphics are forbidden!

The process is actually extremely simple, the basic idea is that you you set a nice fat border then remove the side you wish the arrow to point to.

Example Code

.right-arrow {

border: 8px solid white;
border-width: 8px 0 8px 8px;
border-color: white red;
font-size: 0; /* needed for IE browsers, if this isn't set to 0 you will end up with a trapezoid */
line-height: 0;

}

<div class="right-arrow"></div>

Output

So that works fairly nice, but we want to actually do something useful with the arrow like pointing to a link; using a div just complicates the job as we now have to deal with floating. If we change the first example's tag from div to span and remove the font-size property, or set a width to it you will notice we get a trapezoid shape. Let's try and get this fix0red!

Example Code

.right-arrow {

border: 8px solid white;
border-width: 8px 0 8px 8px;
border-color: white red;
font-size: 0; /* needed for IE browsers, if this isn't set to 0 you will end up with a trapezoid */
line-height: 0;
display: inline-block;

}

<span class="right-arrow"></span> <a href="http://twitter.com/blindsignals">follow me on twitter</a>!

Output

follow me on twitter!

The possibilities are fairly large with this technique and it almost certainly shuts out any previous requirement of an image to get the same functionality. With positioning properties we can move our arrow anywhere within a block element to make beautiful pointers on menu items, we can make pointing list items, link pointers, and even faux element wrapping!

Go and make peace with your GIFs and PNGs, they are going to hate you after this.