Let’s say you have found a cool program to install in your system. The moment you click setup, one of the following messages appears:

• The Windows Installer Service can’t be accessed.
• The installer service can’t be started on your computer and access is denied.

The messages may even appear half-way through the installation or when you’re trying to uninstall an existing program in your system.

Problems relating to the Windows Installer Service can arise if:

• You have a corrupt registry.
• You have accidentally changed a registry setting relating to the Windows Installer.
• You try to run multiple installation setups at the same time.
• You interrupt the installation of an application like Microsoft Office Suite.

The way to overcome the problem is by using The Windows Installer Clean Up Utility. This tool will allow you to safely remove installer settings for the problematic program.

You don’t have to fear having important files from the program removed. Windows Clean Up Utility will only remove installer information relating to the program. This will include installation information in the Add or Remove Programs section in the Control Panel.

In short, Windows Installer Cleanup Utility will only do away with installation files so that you can reinstall or uninstall an application without a hitch. However, the Utility will not remove Windows Installer itself. It will also not remove Microsoft-based programs like Office.

Be sure to have the latest version which works flawlessly in 32-bit and 64-bit Microsoft Windows. The best bet is downloading it from Microsoft Download Center.

What happens when you install Windows Installer Cleanup Utility to your system? Three files are copied to the Utility folder in Program Files. They are msicuu.exe, msizap.exe and readme.txt. Follow these steps to get started with Cleanup Utility:

1. Run msicuu2.exe. Locate it under the Start Menu or in the Windows Installer Clean Up Utility folder under Program Files.
2. A dialog box will appear with the following message: “Continuing further will make permanent changes to the system that used Windows Installer Technology to be installed. If you do not want to proceed, please press the Exit button now. Choosing `Remove’ will make the permanent changes.”
3. Ignore the warning and select the program that was installed through Windows Installer and press the Remove button.

After you exit Windows Clean Up Utility, you’re ready to reinstall or uninstall the program.

When reinstalling the program, choose the same folder as you had in the previous installation to prevent unnecessary duplication of files which will only consume additional hard disk space.