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While running the Visual Studio Installer and selecting the things I want to install, just when starts to download, I get the following message: Title "Before we get started" Message "The Windows Installer Service is unavailable. Please restart your system and try again.". This message box appears no matter what I've done.
Things I have done:
Delete Installer, redownload and run
Restarted Windows Installer Service under Task Manager's Services
Made sure that Startup Type is set to manual start
Ran on CMD "sfc /scannow" and fixed any encountered errors
Unregistered and reregistered using "msiexec /unregister" and "msiexec /regserver"
Made sure I ran the installer as Administrator.
Deactivated Antivirus
I found an article with the same question here: https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/all/why-do-i-have-windows-installer-service/9db029e4-6e28-4972-84c1-0cfc7e3bed1b
And the moderator recommended changing the msisip.dll file names to .old but I don't have permission to do that.
Thank you
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Hello @hind,
Welcome to Microsoft Q&A forum.
Have you tried to reboot your machine and test again?
If the machine is managed by your administrator or IT department, try to communicate with them and make sure that there’s no limitation on your machine.
Please also try to update Windows OS.
Hi, thank you
My operating system is updated
And this is a private computer of which I am the administrator,
Is there no other way to solve this?
I prefer to avoid booting,
And if a reboot is required - what programs will remain after it?
Thank you!
Hi @hind,
what programs will remain after it?
I’m a little confused. Rebooting won’t remove any programs, it’s equal to restarting, and different from resetting/restoring. Actually, I mean restarting your machine, do you mean you prefer to avoid restarting your machine?
Is there no other way to solve this?
As you can see, the error message “The Windows Installer Service is unavailable. Please restart your system and try again” indicates that this specific service is unavailable.
Start this service and restart your machine should be the first method to try.
I noticed that you have confirmed that the Startup Type of Windows Installer service is set to manual start. Just to confirm, did you check and confirm this from "Services"(search Services in Windows Search box > open it > find the "Windows Installer" service > if it’s not running, try to right-click it and click Start to run it), instead of Task Manager?
Another thing to consider is that you didn’t modify or set any system configurations which might block VS from installing.
In case the issue is caused by VS Installer, I would suggest you also try to reinstall VS Installer. You can rename this folder C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\Installer, download a new setup file of VS, run it again to reinstall the VS Installer.
I certainly tried restarting, as well as checking if Windows Installer is running
Do you think reinstalling VS installer will help?
Another thing to consider is that you didn’t modify or set any system configurations which might block VS from installing.
What it means?
thank you!
Hi @hind,
Do you think reinstalling VS Installer will help?
Just to confirm, if VS Installer has been installed correctly? If VS Installer also failed to install, then there’s no need to reinstall it. If VS Installer has been installed correctly, please try to reinstall it manually.
What it means?
I mean if you changed any system settings? For example, configuring the machine.config file.
Not sure if VS setup log files recorded some detailed information, please try to download and run this collect.exe tool. Navigate to %temp% folder, find the vslogs.zip file/folder, in it, there’s a sub-folder also called Temp, try to open it. You should see some files start with dd_, try to check files start with dd_bootstrapper, dd_installer and dd_setup. If you can find any detailed information about error, please share it here.
I still doubt that the cause is hidden in system. Can you double confirm that (Settings > Windows Update > click “Check for updates”) every patch has been installed and Windows OS has been updated correctly?
BTW, does this issue also appear on other applications(except VS) when you try to install them?