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
    2014-10-09T05:37:45+00:00

    C:\Users\xxx\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Crypto\RSA

    Delete content in the above location, and the problem will be resolved.

    Thank you very much user

    Notice who you replied to?   Poster  Aznarepse  deserves the credit for this discovery I think.   ; )

    Thanks for confirming the suggestion.

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  2. Anonymous
    2014-10-09T05:04:56+00:00

    C:\Users\xxx\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Crypto\RSA

    Delete content in the above location, and the problem will be resolved.

    After reading a ton of materials, I can't believe this simple solution works beautifully for me. I did not even delete anything, just moved the entire folder under RSA folder to the desktop and boom...I can install any msi application. It's been a couple of months fighting with this ****. Thank you very much user Robert Aldwinckle!! You are the man sir.

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  3. Anonymous
    2014-10-08T15:05:50+00:00

    Hi,  I just ran into this problem when trying to install (push) the updated Backup Exec agent.  When you uninstall the update is a reboot of the machine required?

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  4. Anonymous
    2014-10-06T13:37:31+00:00

    This is the word from the MS Enterprise Support folks.

    Apparently they are not aware of any fix to this. At-least as of now.

    All they are saying that this KB is to fix a security loophole.

    I don't understand what kind of a security fix this is- one that allows a Fresh Install without an UAC prompt, but throws an UAC prompt only for the Upgrade.

    **Workaround 1:**Distributing hash.

    Capture the Hash file* in one machine and distribute them to other machines.

    Hash files are created under “%windir%\installer” directory. The naming convention is as follows: “SourceHash<product GUID>

    * This file is created only when a Product is installed with KB2918614 installed on the machine.This directory is hidden. Open cmd prompt using 'run as administrator'. Traverse to this path and open the folder using "explorer ." command.

    [I couldn't solve the issue using this approach- may be because accessing this directory requires administrator privileges which the Windows Installer itself might not have]

    **Workaround 2:**Whitelisting.

    Only if you trust the application that it is always digitally signed and doesn't contain anything malicious(even in the future).

    Step 1: Enable Whitelisting

    Under Key “HKLM\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Installer”, create a DWORD: “SecureRepairPolicy” and set its Value to 2.

    Step 2: Add the application to the whitelist

    Create a new key “SecureRepairWhitelist” under "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Installer” and create StringValues with the product codes(Including flower brackets {}) of the product.

    Sadly though, both these workarounds need admin privileges!

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  5. Anonymous
    2014-10-06T07:51:16+00:00

    I doubt it. This thread was created as a discussion. Even if it was a question there is a high chance they still wouldn't see it since this is a community built by Microsoft for peer to peer help. They do monitor it but in a very limited capacity.

    They determine when an issue has come up using a few places. The most useful are support calls to the individual user support and the enterprise support and onsite techs. If you call the update support they will most likely ask for a verbose update log and it will help determine the issue. They will explain how to get what they need. Good luck

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