KB2918614 breaks Windows Installer Service

Anonymous
2014-08-17T15:30:13+00:00

I didnt know where best to post a bug report about KB2918614.

This is for Windows 8.1 Pro

It appears on August 13 I received KB2918614 and immediately after I began having trouble with certain MSI installations, especially those that required any version of Visual C++ Redistributable to be installed.

Now, of course I have most of those already installed, but the install process of many programs runs those redistributables before the actual install runs.  It would always give me the error of "key not valid for use in specified state" and exit with a 1603 event.

I didnt know what caused the problem at the time and went through many troubleshooting steps including sfc/scannow, registry modifications (which have all been switched back to their original values), and attempts at re-installing the Windows Installer Service for Windows 8.1 (5.0) which apparently does not have its own redistributable install file.

Eventually I determined that I received a large number of updates on 8/13, so I removed them all.  This immediately fixed my problem.

As I didnt know if that was a fluke and I didnt know which specific update caused the problem, on reboot they all re-installed.

The problem returned as soon as I started back into windows.

I went through each of the knowledgebase articles and located KB2918614 as being the only one that modifies the MSI Windows installer service files.

I have now removed and hidden this update.

I wanted to notify Microsoft of this issue but did not know the best method to do so, so I am posting it in the Microsoft community in the event another user has the same problem as I did in order to work around it.

Windows for home | Previous Windows versions | Install and upgrade

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  1. Anonymous
    2015-02-01T15:59:40+00:00

    For the whitelisting trick, how do you determine the product id (what to put between {})?

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  2. Anonymous
    2015-01-21T08:04:23+00:00

    It looks like uninstalling KB2918614, or applying the hotfix for that update does not work for all programs. For me, everything installs fine, except for the .NET Framework 4.5.2 update (4.5.1 was installed already earlier). I  always get error 997 from SecRepair, the only thing that helped is whitelisting. Note that I do not work with temporary uerprofiles, but I am completely unable to install this .NET update without the whitelisting "trick".

    So I guess Microsoft has not fixed that issue completely, at least on my primary workplace :(

    System is Win7 Ultimate 64 Bit...

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  3. Anonymous
    2014-12-22T21:41:25+00:00

    After reading your comment, I uninstalled update 

    KB2918614  

    and tried to install the zip download I purchased, that was the last item I couldn't install, since having the same problem since about mid-August.  It would not install, so since I had the weather app and a browser open when uninstalling, I shut down and restarted.  No go still.  It looks like you may have been mistaken about this.  Perhaps another coincidental change was made near the same time?  Or, there is something different between the win8 and win7 which I run 7.  IF you hear of any other solutions, let me know.

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  4. Anonymous
    2014-12-22T21:10:04+00:00

    Teriophage :                                                                                      Dec 22, 14

    I am running Win7 on my desktop PC and started having the same troubles on Aug. 14th.  At first, my machine would only have 64bit MS updates install all the way.  I have been so overburdened with work since then, I kept thinking I'd have to wait, but was under the gun with one deadline after the next until now.

    Downloading was not problem.  Once the download opened and began installing for no longer than a second or two, the error pop-up came outThe Windows Uninstaller error pop-up came up for all other installations.  In the weeks that followed, some things would install and others not. I had purchased a small program that was in a zip file. A few other small apps would not install either, along with the zip file one.  I re:upped on a security feature for annual membership and that did install.  It was weird.  It seemed downloads in zip would not work. Norton, which has it's own installer built in did install, and as it did,   I don't know if MS put corrections in the updates that followed or if they loaded on different code, 

    Then my Norton360 expired.  I downloaded an AVG antivirus trial and that would not go.  I went back to norton and downloaded a trial, and it did install, since I had seen the Norton installer folder in program files, it seemed other items (apps) came up on their own to install, so I did.  All but the zip file opened on their own.  I paid for that one, and still kept the download.

    Are you saying to just uninstall the KB2918614 ?  I am going ahead with that and will try to notify MS.

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  5. Anonymous
    2014-12-16T02:35:13+00:00

    Thank you!  I too was having the same issue from that update you pointed out.

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