Error 2203 while extracting msi

Question

I am getting 2203 error while extracting msi with following command.

msiexec /a "C:\Test\Installer.msi" /QB targetDIR="C:\Test\Eval" /LV* "C:\Test\INST_Logfile.log"

Please consider following points while answering:

• Logged-in user and SYSTEM account has full access on
  %TEMP%,C:\Windows\Installer.

• msi is not marked as ReadOnly.

• Checked Windows installer service and it is working fine.

• Tried unregister and register msiexec

         MSIEXEC /UNREGISTER
         MSIEXEC /REGSERVER
  

• Restarted system

Below is error captured in log:

MSI (s) (88:A4) [14:09:27:551]: Executing op: DatabaseCopy(DatabasePath=C:\Test\Installer.msi,,CabinetStreams=cab1.cab,AdminDestFolder=C:\Test\,) MSI (s) (88:A4) [14:09:27:551]: Note: 1: 2203 2: C:\Test\Installer.msi 3: -2147287008 DEBUG: Error 2203: Database: C:\Test\Installer.msi. Cannot open database file. System error -2147287008 MSI (s) (88:A4) [14:09:34:634]: Product: Installer -- The installer has encountered an unexpected error installing this package. This may indicate a problem with this package. The error code is 2203. The arguments are: C:\Test\Installer.msi, -2147287008,

Answer 1

I had this problem due to something stupid on my part, but figured I would post in case anyone else tries this. For this extraction command line (and others I presume), DO NOT have the msi you are extracting in same folder as TARGETDIR. The windows installer seems to lock the folder during the extraction process and therefore the contents cannot be written to the same folder.

Answer 2

Great Answer guys! I was looking for a deeper error code. Cannot Open the Database file. System Error -2147287008. Which is part of the more generic Error 2203 Database? It was caused by trying to extract the MSI into the same location as the MSI itself. Hoping this will help other searching by this error code.

Answer 3

TrendMicro antivirus was installed on machine and it was preventing msi extraction. So once TrendMicro anti-virus was turned off installer ran successfully.

Thank you all for your answers

Answer 4

In my case error 2203 was caused by my %TEMP% directory not being writable by SYSTEM. (It only had permissions for my user account.) Giving SYSTEM modify permissions fixed the problem.

Answer 5

I was trying to install MySQL community server, and installer would stop with 2203 error code.

I had PATH variable in Windows environment variables section, referring to temp folder at C:\Temp, but there was no such folder in the root of C drive. After creating Temp folder at C:\Temp, installer was able to continue with installation.

Answer 6

Verify if your variables environment (system and user) TMP and TEMP are well configurated. . These folders should have Full Control permissions.

Answer 7

I had to run cmd as administrator and then run msiexec in that window. Using /a didn't seem to do what I needed it to.

I ended up running it with /i in the elevated cmd and it worked.

(This doesn't solve OP's problem, but posting it in case it helps anyone else with the same issue.)

Answer 8

I have just gotten a 2203 by having C:\Windows\Temp be an NTFS Link (junction) to my correct temp dir E:\temp. Both %TMP% and %TEMP% were set to E:\temp so MSI had no business looking at C:\Windows\Temp, yet it must have done so for reasons beyond my comprehension...

Edit: removing the junction and creating a C:\Windows\Temp got rid of the 2203, but produced a 2503 and 2502, which went away after giving my user full access rights to the directory.