Tuesday, September 4, 2007

The windows installer service cannot update one or more protected windows files.

A quick tidbit for those that have come across this issue or may run in to this in the near future. I did a re-image today on a system and was boggled for a few minutes when I received the following error while trying to install Office 2007 Enterprise:

"The windows installer service cannot update one or more protected windows files."

hmm... ok let's try that again... Nope.. same error...

Ok time to take a look at the Event Viewer:

"Product: Microsoft Software Update for Web Folders (English) 12 -- Error 193 The Windows Installer service cannot update one or more protected Windows files. SFP Error: -536870654.
List of protected files: C:\program files\common files\microsoft shared\web server extensions\40\bin\fp4autl.dll"

Weird... After checking this directory there happened to be no such dll file.
Ok then... here's the Quick Fix:
download fp4autl.dll here

Then place it into the c:\program files\common files\microsoft shared\web server extensions\40\bin\ folder and then re-run the installation of office and you should be in business.

This has been a known issue since Office 2000 - you can check out the MS documentation here.

30 comments:

Maja said...

Thank you so much for this post. I was having the exact same problem and this is the most simple solution to the problem I've found. And it worked! You rock.

Stephen Smith said...

Oh you are so welcome, i'm glad that it helped you... I remember how frustrating this issue was for me :)

Unknown said...

Oh yes! Yours is the first solution I tried, and it worked for me too!

Thanks so very much.

Stephen Smith said...

Great! Glad it worked :)

pa3jarh said...

Thank you Stephen,

After several attempts to install office 2007 I almost lost patience, but then I saw your post, followed it and solved a problem.

Hip hip hurra!

pa3jarh said...

Thank you Stephen
After several attempts to install Office 2007 I almost lost patience, but then I saw your post, followed it and solved my problem.
Hip, hip, hurra!

Unknown said...

Jessie F.

Thank you .. thank you .. your solution didn't make sense at all when I read it. But I was totally wrong (gladly) ... thank you again

Dipti said...

Thank you Stephen! I was so frustrated trying to find the dll file. All the solutions mentioned it and I just couldn't find it.
Now it works perfectly.
Thanks once again!

Dipti said...

Thank you Stephen! I was so frustrated trying to find the dll file. All the solutions mentioned it and I just couldn't find it.
Now it works perfectly.
Thanks once again!

aledel18 said...

Hey thanks for you post, it was really helpful!

Cubanit04lif3 said...

thanks a lot it worked eventho i just went looking for the answear for it w/o looking at event viewer i know there was something wrong lolz.. Thank you :P

Unknown said...

How you figured this out...I have no idea. One of the fastest bypasses I've seen. Saved me hours of experimenting no doubt.

Yinka Oyero said...

You are Great. It worked 100%. Thanks.

Unknown said...

Wow, It works Thanks alot buddy...

Unknown said...

Thanks Agian Dude

Unknown said...

Thanks a lot for this very easy solution. Had been try to install Office 2007 on a nettop and never encounter such problem before.

Thanks man.

Oana said...

thank you ! I am so happy I found this post!

Unknown said...

I love you
it was the first thing and it worked amazing i was up the whole night and i was looking for a solution and yours worked thank you so much

Unknown said...

Hei Stephen! My name is Stas Im from Norway. Studying at the oslo academy. I'm taking information technology.
What can I say. I used 3 hours to solve this problem. I've been through regedit and all possible folders on windows xp. I used official Microsoft site to delete or remove office 2007 and it looked really wired. But after I found your solution it took me 5 minutes exclude installation of office 2007 enterprise. I think it's my first time I'm writing a comment.

Thank you so much and you're a greate guy!!!
Greetings Stas from Oslo.

Nanadipwa Int. Nig. Ltd said...

I was lucky to get to this blog today. I have been battling with this error since 2007 since March. I have just successfully installed it.
Thanks a million

Vikas Dadhich said...

Thanx Man!!
You are great.

GummySergeant said...

Your so super awesome awesomely cool for posting this! Thank you!

angryjames said...

Hey thought I would say a quick thanks before I left your page, excellent tutorial...wouldn't have been able to fix it without dealing with M$! Thanks again-

Rahul Kumar said...

Thank you very much... You saved my day

Unknown said...

Thanks for your post. This was a frustrating problem that you made so easy to fix. The dll link is a great help.

Unknown said...

Thank you very much for your post ,over a week now I was having difficulty installing office 07. God bless you tremendously brother.

Unknown said...

Thanks dude, you made my day!:D

Unknown said...

I'm just going to confirm what everyone has already said - perfect fix! - hx Stephen what a star you are :)

Unknown said...

what a precious blog it is, it actually helps some students that undergo frustrations like me, i am about to install the 2007 version of the office, and i got caught by the error, but thru this blog, it finally works, i also want to thank ver santos because he is the one who gave me this blog address. thanks for helping us mr.smith! a very merry christmas and happy new year to you! :)

Andres said...

Thanks for posting this! It really helped me, I was about to smash my laptop on a brickwall! I really mean it!

Also, I'd like to point that it's convenient to look in the events viewer to see the exact path of the protected files: That's what I had to do, because, somehow, it was in another path... Thanks!!