Seriously, Microsoft???  This same error has been coming up since Windows XP!  It is January 2013.

Windows 8 64x.  Attempting to install Adobe 9, getting this same error.

I run mmc services - the services IS started, IS set to manual, and the option to change the startup is grayed out.  I am an administrator on my machine.

I tried the following in a cmd.exe window "Run as Administrator".

> msiexec /unregister
> msiexec /regserver
> net stop msiserver
> net start msiserver

The service reported it successfully stopped and started.

Still won't install, and anything else that uses the Microsoft Windows Installer won't install. 

I find nothing about this happening on a Windows 8 install.  I am dual-booting Windows 7 and Windows 8, and it is happening only on Windows 8.

Can't you get out an authoritative fix on this?????  Seri

FYI, I just finished resolving this issue on 32-bit Windows 8.  In my case, the underlying cause turned out to be corruption of the underlying .NET 4 framework itself.  (The top-level folder C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v4.030319 was "corrupt and unreadable", according to File Explorer.  "sfc /scannow" pointed me in the right direction:  it generated lots of diagnostic messages about various missing .NET files, though of course it was unable to conjure these missing files out of thin air.)

I wanted to try resolving this issue by reinstalling .NET 4 alone, but my reinstallation attempt was blocked because ".NET 4 is already part of Windows 8" (and therefore it must be working perfectly???).  So I was forced to do a complete reinstall of Windows 8.  Following this reinstall, the .NET 4 folder was fixed and I was able to run the installation scripts which had failed before.

The key takeaway here:  the Windows Installer Service depends on .NET 4, so consider the possibility that your installation problems are actually your first encounter with a more general problem with this framework.  Secondary takeaways:  1) "sfc /scannow" is your friend; 2) you cannot repair .NET 4 alone in Windows 8.

-Jon

Jacqueline & JWFreeman I have have spent 2 weeks searching the web for a solution to this problem on windows 8.1..  i just did the following

"sfc /scannow"

then

> msiexec /unregister
> msiexec /regserver
> net stop msiserver
> net start msiserver

and it worked just fine

THANK YOU :)