*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!