This error is typical of the InstalShield installer.
This may happen if the software database into which InstallShield (the version compatible with the Microsoft Windows Installer) registers the installed application is corrupted.
Many applications use InstallShield (including applications from Microsoft). The problem is caused by version incompatibilities between the shared Installshield drivers and the shared Windows Installer drivers.
For various reasons, if there's a corruption in that database, some Windows components may need to re-register themselves each time an application using it starts (this includes some display drivers).
Unfortunately, neither Microsoft, not InstallShield provide a repair tool to check the coherence of the installation database. But their exists some third party tools (registry repair tools) that may solve this problem (but I don't know any of them which is free of charge).
In some cases, you may solve the problem by reinstalling MS Office (if it is installed on your system), or by running its "Help->Detect and Repair" option (you'll need the installation CDROMs).
Generally, damages to the installation database are caused by some "cheap" or "free programs or sharewares, whose installer is poorly programmed.
It may also be caused by virus and worms, notably those that attack the Windows GDI+ vulnerability, and cause some critical GDI+ DLLs to be overwritten, and later erased by antivirus tools: run Windows Update, and get the new security update for the GDI+ patch of the image codecs (JPEG and PNG image codecs): to complete this patch, you may need to run Office Update too; this patch should detect which Office application is affected (you may need the CDROM for windows *and* CDROM's for Office, as well as a local, desarchived, copy of the Widows XP Service Pack 2) |