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Fun and Games with Error 1316 - yet another reason why we don't want or need the Windows Installer

| Sunday, May 09, 2010
This morning I was trying to upgrade my Sametime 7.5.1 to Sametime 8.0.2 to see if I could fix (once and for all) some long running issues with external group loading and Voice Suite.
After downloading the ST 8.0.2 binaries, I closed my ST 7.5.1 and double-clicked on the sametime802.msi to start the install. Assuming it would auto-detect the existing, older version of Sametime on my system, and let me choose an upgrade option, I was a bit surprised it just exited, telling me to uninstall the old version first.

So, like an obedient little end-user, off I went to Start > Run > control > Add/Remove Programs (it's an XP Pro system) and found the IBM Lotus Sametime 7.5.1 entry. I clicked remove and after about 2 seconds, I got this message:


Error 1316. A network error occurred while attempting to read from the file
C:\Windows\Installer\sametime802.msi


Now, you could get this error with almost any program that you were trying to install over the top of itself, upgrade or uninstall - it basically seems to occur when the msi entry is missing from the registry (I think, at least, it was that in my case) - it's not a Sametime specific issue.

The Microsoft sign at the entrance of the Germ...Image via Wikipedia
You're obviously not going to get this if the program doesn't use or need msi, and I think software companies really shouldn't ever use the Windows Installer (msi). I'm not sure why any of them do, because it's terrible and a common source of problems. I remember myself and a work colleague having a nightmare with upgrading Symantec from version 9 to 10 a few years back on about 50 machines. I almost always failed with a cryptic error code, and in the end we had to run NONAV to completely remove every trace of Symantec 9 before we could get the version 10 installer to complete.


Anyway, I digress. If you're still reading, you obviously want to know how to get your program installed/upgraded/uninstalled, so I'll stop drivelling on... Here's how:

1. Go and grab yourself a copy of the Windows Installer Cleanup Utility from Microsoft  (note: you can read all about it here)
2. Double-click on the executable file you just downloaded - it should be called msicuu2.exe
3. You'll get the usual startup (unless you're a Windows 7 and possibly Vista user, where you'll just get a VBScript error instead ;-) and then you'll get presented with a list of all the programs you have installed that use msi, which looks like this:


4. Select the program you wish to remove, and click "Remove"
5. You'll see a typical Microsoft "Are you sure?" screen, but it explains that you are not actually uninstalling the program, but are in fact just removing the entry from the msi (Windows Installer) database:


6. Click OK, and you're done. You can now proceed to do whatever it was you were trying to do before, and it should work - no more Error 1316!


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3 comments:

Rocker Chick said...

fyi, now is a Microsoft Fixit app here http://support.microsoft.com/mats/Program_Install_and_Uninstall

error 1316 said...

Error 1316 is an installation error. It pops up when a software is being installed, uninstalled or repaired on your computer. You may get the following description while seeing this error: Error 1316: "A network error occurred while attempting to read from the file: :\Install.msi"

Anonymous said...

Thanks, my problem is fixed. I upgraded from 7.5.1 to 8.5.1. I had the same issue.

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