This post is a quick tip to find the version of Windows Installer installed on your box.

You might wonder why I ever need to check this version, so here is my small story -

Today I was installing SQLServer 2008 Upgrade advisor for a Windows Server 2003(SP2) box(Pretty old one) and right away got this error -

The error message was pointing that the server might be running an old version of windows installer.

I decided to check what was the basic system requirements to install SQLServer 2008 Upgrade Advisor. Oh btw, that check should have been done earlier, but you know these things happen sometimes ! [With a promise not to repeat it later on].

SQLServer 2008 Upgrade Advisor needs Windows Installer 4.5 to work and that’s clearly mentioned in the download page.

Now I was curious to see what is the version of windows installer which is currently running.

How do I do that? I haven’t bothered to check that in the past too.

After doing some random search I finally got a simple answer to my question, thanks to http://stackoverflow.com/.

The best and easiest way to check the version is by typing msiexec in Run prompt to get

This quickly tells you about the version.

I did little more checks to find that there is yet another way to check the version details and that’s by directly checking the .DLL files.

Note – System files should never be modified, moved or deleted.

The above picture shows the details of Windows Installer version once it was updated to 4.5 which was the basic requirement for SQLServer 2008 Upgrade Advisor.

I know you are now thinking of Windows Installer 5.0,here is that information for you.

The Windows Installer 5.0 is part of the Windows Server 2012, Windows 8, Windows Server 2008 R2, and Windows 7. There is no redistributable for Windows Installer 5.0.

SQL Server 2012 Upgrade Advisor also needs Windows Installer 4.5.

Conclusion

One error helped me to learn something more about windows installer and if you are interested too,then here are some links for you

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/cc185688(v=vs.85).aspx

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Installer

http://www.advancedinstaller.com/user-guide/msiexec.html

Thanks for reading and watch this space for more.