How to Enable Microsoft Installer logging and Verbose logging to gather additional troubleshooting Information

Windows Installer uses logging to help you troubleshoot issues that may occur when you install software packages. After you enable logging, you can try the unsuccessful installation again. Windows Installer tracks the progress and records the data in a log file. These logs can then be reviewed by support professionals to help determine the issue.

 Microsoft Installer issues can be caused by data corruption, corrupted installations and many other different issues.

To troubleshoot these issues, you have to enable logging for two processes, and then try to install the updates again. When you enable logging, the actual error codes that are generated by Windows Installer are captured. As soon as the error codes are captured, you can determine the actual issue and the resolution for that issue. These errors will require you to contact Microsoft Support to resolve the issue. However, you have to do several things before you contact Microsoft Support.

To enable and collect the Windows Installer logs, follow the steps for your operating system.

Step 1: Enable Microsoft Installer logging and Windows Update verbose logging

To have us enable logging for you, go to the "Fix it for me" section. If you would rather enable logging yourself, go to the "Let me fix it myself" section.

Fix it for me

To enable logging automatically, click the Fix this problem link, click Run in the File Download dialog box, and then follow the steps in the wizard.


Note this wizard may be in English only; however, the automatic fix also works for other language versions of Windows.

Note If you are not on the computer that has the problem, you can save the automatic fix to a flash drive or to a CD. Then, you can run this fix on the computer that has the problem.

Let me fix it myself

For computers that are running Windows 2000, Windows XP, or Windows Server 2003

1. Click Start, click Run, type Notepad, and then click OK.
2. Type the following commands in Notepad.

   Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
   
   [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Installer]
   "Logging"="voicewarmupx" 
   "Debug"=dword:00000007
   [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\WindowsUpdate\Trace]
   "Flags"=dword:00000016
   "Level"=dword:00000004
   

3. On the File menu, click Save As.
4. In the Save in list, click Desktop.
5. In the File name box, type LoggingOn.reg, click All Files in the Save as type list, and then click Save.
6. On the desktop, double-click the LoggingOn.reg file to add the registry keys to the Windows registry.
7. Click OK in the message box.
8. Try to install the update again to capture the additional error information in the Windows Installer .log file.

For computers that are running Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008

1. Click Start
   Collapse this imageExpand this image

   
   , and then in the Start Search box, type Notepad.
2. In the Programs list, click Notepad.
3. Type the following commands in Notepad.

   Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
   
   [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Installer]
   "Logging"="voicewarmupx" 
   "Debug"=dword:00000007
   [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\WindowsUpdate\Trace]
   "Flags"=dword:00000016
   "Level"=dword:00000004
   

4. On the File menu, click Save As.
5. In the Save in list, click Desktop.
6. In the File name box, type LoggingOn.reg, click All Files in the Save as type list, and then click Save.
7. On the desktop, double-click the LoggingOn.reg file to add the registry values to the Windows registry.
   
   
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   If you are prompted for an administrator password or confirmation, type the password or click Continue.
8. Click Yes, and then click OK.
9. Try to install the update again to capture the additional error information in the Windows Installer .log file.

Step 2: Try to install updates again to create the log files

To try to install the updates again, visit the following Microsoft Update Web site: Note It can take several minutes to collect these logs, and the update process may not seem to be functioning correctly. Allow for the necessary time for the process to finish.

Step 3: Disable Microsoft Installer logging and Windows Update verbose logging

Important As soon as Windows Update or Microsoft Update has finished, disable Windows Installer logging. Having logging enabled can require too much time every time that you install updates, can slow down your computer, and can create large log files that require large amounts of disk space.

To have us disable logging for you, go to the "Fix it for me" section. If you would rather disable logging yourself, go to the "Let me fix it myself" section.

Fix it for me

To disable logging automatically, click the Fix this problem link, click Run in the File Download dialog box, and then follow the steps in the wizard.


Note this wizard may be in English only; however, the automatic fix also works for other language versions of Windows.

Note If you are not on the computer that has the problem, you can save the automatic fix to a flash drive or to a CD. Then, you can run this fix on the computer that has the problem.

Let me fix it myself

To disable Windows Installer logging, follow the steps for your operating system.

For computers that are running Windows 2000, Windows XP, or Windows Server 2003

1. Click Start, click Run, type Notepad, and then click OK.
2. Type the following commands in Notepad.

   Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
   
   [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Installer]
   "Logging"=-
   "Debug"=-
   [-HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\WindowsUpdate\Trace]
   

3. On the File menu, click Save As.
4. In the Save in list, click Desktop.
5. In the File name box, type LoggingOff.reg, click All Files in the Save as type list, and then click Save.
6. On the desktop, double-click the LoggingOff.reg file to remove the registry values from the Windows registry.
7. Click OK in the message box.
8. Delete the LoggingOn.reg and LoggingOff.reg files from the desktop

Contact Microsoft Support for help, and reference this Microsoft Knowledge Base article when you speak to the support agent. For more information about how to contact Microsoft Support, visit the following Microsoft Web site:

For computers that are running Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008

1. Click Start
   Collapse this imageExpand this image

   
   , and then type Notepad in the Start Search box.
2. In the Programs list, click Notepad.
3. Type the following commands in Notepad.

   Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
   
   [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Installer]
   "Logging"=-
   "Debug"=-
   [-HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\WindowsUpdate\Trace]
   

4. In Notepad, click Save As on the File menu.
5. In the Save in list, click Desktop.
6. In the File name box, type LoggingOff.reg, click All Files in the Save as type list, and then click Save.
7. On the desktop, double-click the LoggingOff.reg file to remove the registry values from the Windows registry.
   
   
   Collapse this imageExpand this image

   
   If you are prompted for an administrator password or confirmation, type the password or click Continue.
8. Click Yes, and then click OK.
9. Delete the LoggingOn.reg and LoggingOff.reg files from the desktop.

Contact Microsoft Support for help, and reference this Microsoft Knowledge Base article when you speak to the support agent. For more information about how to contact Microsoft Support, visit the following Microsoft Web site:

In most cases, the Windows Installer log starts with msi, ends with a .log extension, and includes a group of characters. For example, the Windows Installer log will have a file name that resembles the following: On computers that are running Windows 2000, Windows XP, or Windows Server 2003, the installer log is located in the following directory: To open this directory, click Start, click Run, type %temp%, and then click OK.

Note This information assumes that Windows is installed to the default drive C. If this is not the case, adjust the drive letter for the folder path to match the installation drive.

On computers that are running Windows Vista or Windows Server 2008, the installer log is located in the following directory: To open this directory, click Start , type %temp% in the Start Search box, and then press ENTER.

Note This information assumes that Windows is installed to the default drive C. If this is not the case, adjust the drive letter for the folder path to match the installation drive.

For more information about how to enable Windows Installer logging, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: