InstallShield Trouble

Scythe · Post by **Scythe** » Mon Dec 25, 2006 11:59

Strangest thing happened as I was installing Sid Meyer's Pirates last night. I got this error message:

1: The InstallScript engine on this machine is older than the version required to run this setup. If available, please install the latest version of ISScript.msi, or contact blah, blah.

Error: -1603 Fatal error during installation.

After digging around for clues, I deleted and replaced ISScript8 files (which were the relevant ones) with ones found on the web and, after that, the ones provided on the Pirates installation CD, cleaned out the Windows\Temp directory and checked that no old installation files were left from a previous install, I reregistered IDriver.exe and msiexec.exe. After making each change and before retrying, I always restarted the comp. Same error.

Those were all the possible fixes I could dig up. Any ideas?

Railwaymodeler · Post by **Railwaymodeler** » Mon Dec 25, 2006 17:53

I think I remember this from somewhere. Have you downloaded and installed Windows Installer 3.1 from Microsoft's website? Here's the URL:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/deta ... layLang=en

That's all I can think of right now. But I just woke up.

Scythe · Post by **Scythe** » Mon Dec 25, 2006 18:47

I will definitely try it when I get home, and let you know. Thanks for the suggestion!

Scythe · Post by **Scythe** » Mon Dec 25, 2006 21:10

It didn't make any difference. Any other ideas?

Railwaymodeler · Post by **Railwaymodeler** » Mon Dec 25, 2006 21:24

Darn it. I googled the error code and didn't get anything too helpful, to be honest. Looks to be a fairly common problem.

Have you tried the manufacturer's site to see if they have a workaround? Maybe it's something with their software plus your machine configuration. I remember some time ago a friend had the Sims 2 and she couldn't get it to install. Turned out the problem was that it worked on another machine, and it was the fact that she needed a patch first. (There was an issue when installing from the CD using a CDRW drive). Little things like that tend to crop up once in a while.

Eric · Post by **Eric** » Mon Dec 25, 2006 22:06

You've probably already seen and tried these...

http://consumer.installshield.com/kb.asp?id=Q111019

Scythe · Post by **Scythe** » Mon Dec 25, 2006 23:29

Indeed I have, Eric, and I have taken all the steps possible, short of reinstalling Windows (which might not even work).

The game works perfectly on my old comp, so I know it's something about this machine. The question is whether there's something that can be done about it.

Hmm, I'll try to see if I can find other games that use InstallShield ver. 8 to figure out if it's an InstallShield problem or something specific to this game. There's no preinstall patch for it, only content patches.

Scythe · Post by **Scythe** » Mon Dec 25, 2006 23:45

Right. It appears to be a more general problem than that, as another game that runs on InstallShield ver. 9 triggered the same error. On the other hand, other games that run on 8 and 9 install perfectly. Some sort of conflict unfortunately, which will likely not be easy to identify. The common file is msiexec.exe; I'll need to make sure it's the latest one of those I have, at least... or that's just my thoughts on the matter anyway...

EDIT: oh, it was in the link Modeler provided... sheesh... Does anybody know what the latest version is? Mine is 3.1.4000.1823

Could I possibly try an older version? Hmm...

Eric · Post by **Eric** » Tue Dec 26, 2006 1:00

Latest version is 3.1.4000.2435

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/deta ... layLang=en

MS KB article:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/834484/en-us

Sorry, not much use to you really.

Other suggestions would just the usual stuff you've already done; revert to a restore point, clean the computer of any crap (including registry), consider any games you have recently installed - they may have corrupted some files.

Scythe · Post by **Scythe** » Tue Dec 26, 2006 17:46

That's odd... It's the one I installed, but it's still version 3.1.4000.1823...