Event 1008 MsiInstaller

Recently while updating from VMware Server 2.0 Beta 1 to Beta 2 I ran into an odd installation problem. The installation program, after spending some time initializing, would come back with an error stating "the installation could not continue due to software restriction policy" (close to this anyway, I closed the pop-up and don't remember the exact message). I would also get an MsiInstaller error listed in the application event log.

Index : 3609
EntryType : Error
EventID : 1008
Message : The installation of C:\DOCUME~1\ADMINI~1\LOCALS~1\Temp\{AF08C71F-F822-4416-87A9-2BBF5A8A5F12}~setu
p\VMware Server.msi is not permitted due to an error in software restriction policy processing. Th
e object cannot be trusted.
Category : (0)
CategoryNumber : 0
ReplacementStrings : {C:\DOCUME~1\ADMINI~1\LOCALS~1\Temp\{AF08C71F-F822-4416-87A9-2BBF5A8A5F12}~setup\VMware Server.msi
, (NULL), (NULL), (NULL)}
Source : MsiInstaller
TimeGenerated : 3/29/2008 6:21:02 PM
TimeWritten : 3/29/2008 6:21:02 PM
UserName : XP64HOST\trhodes

My PC is XP Professional 64 bit, and is not joined to a domain. I was running the installation under a local administrator account, and have never configured any software restriction policies on my PC.

I found it to be an odd error, and after rebooting, and trying to install again I still suffered from the same error.

Google returned very little, and being that VMware Server 2 Beta 2 had just been released the day before, very little assistance was available.

I finally found the following link result in Google after searching a bit, although not directly related to VMware.

http://forums.asp.net/p/1240092/2262940.aspx

This forum discussion described the same MsiInstaller error that I had been experiencing with a solution.

Start -> Control Panel 2. Open Administrative Tools 3. Open Local Security Settings 4. Click Software Restriction Policies a. If no software restrictions are defined, right click the Software Restriction Policies node and select New Software Restriction Policy5. Double click Enforcement 6. Select "All users except local administrators" 7. Click OK 8. Reboot the machine or run gpupdate /force

Which worked wonderfully. I wonder why I had the problem in the first place.

Update 4/6/08:

A week or so later I found this on VMware's site with the release notes for Beta 2, listing this as a problem for Windows Server 2003, with the fix being to right click and do a runas administrator.

http://www.vmware.com/products/beta/vmware_server/releasenotes_vmserver2.html