When I run into the issue of the windows installer on my computer, I just noticed I can not install any software via windows installer. I just got the message of “Internal Error 2203, C:\Windows\Installer\ xxxxxxx.ipi” (xxxxxxx is a random number) each time during the installation, then the installation is rolled back automatically.

 

After googled and tried many times, I knew the root reason is windows installer need to use specific temp folder. I’ll list all possible causes as far as I found.

1)      Environment Variable of current login user, make sure it contains the following 2 items:

TEMP: %USERPROFILE%\Local Settings\Temp

TMP: %USERPROFILE%\Local Settings\Temp

2)      Make sure current login user have administrator privilege

3)      Make sure the “MachineName\System” user has full control for the following folder

C:\Documents and Settings\<current login user>\Local Settings\Temp

4)      For some software, it may also need the “MachineName\System” user has full control for C:\Documents and Settings\<current login user>\Application Data