vCenter 4.1 Upgrade – Error 1719 The Windows Installer Service Could Not Be Accessed
January 03, 2011 
Sean Crookston 
Upon attempting to upgrade a vCenter server to 4.1 I was presented with and error like the below.
Error 1719 – The Windows Installer Service could not be accessed
My first thoughts were around how I would have to build a new vCenter server because the Windows Installer Service was completely hosed. After some initial troubleshooting I was still not able to get the install working, however a quick search for vcenter and error 1719 presented me with a solution that resolved a similar issue with VMware Tools installations on Windows 2008 x64 operating systems.
The issue was simply related to a registry key that when set only allows the Windows Installer service to handle 32 bit installers. Why it was set like this on the machine or that you’d event want this ‘capability’ I have no idea.
The solution as posted in the kb article here for VMware Tools is
To check for the WOW64 key:
- Click Start > Run, type regedit, and click OK. The Registry Editor window opens.
- Click File > Export and back up the current registry.
- Browse the registry editor to locate HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ CurrentControlSet\Services\msiserver.
- Look for the key WOW64 and check its value.
If the value is of the key is 0×00000001 (1), the Windows Installer can only handle 32-bit installers and is set to report an error whenever you try to install a 64-bit package.- Edit this key and change the value to 0 so it looks similar to:
WOW64 REG_DWORD 0×00000000 (0).- Restart the Windows Installer service using services.msc or reboot the virtual machine.
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