This happens to me once in awhile. I will install something and not really suspect it to cause problems on the PC. I also seldom expect them to have a relation to the problems that might arise.

Anyway, quite awhile ago, I was introduced by a friend to a nice little application called AppLocale. Basically it allows you to run programs with unicode character encoding written for non English Windows so they don’t appear in garbage – or what I called ‘angelic text’ – on your PC. For e.g., if you chat with people in China over an IM called QQ, you will need this for it to run QQ on English Windows.

I have installed it on my office PC but have never used it – and has no use of it – until several weeks ago. That was because an internal chat program in the office, while allowing Chinese input, does not send them across to the recipient properly. So I start using it to launch the chat program, after discovering that by doing so, it now allows me to communicate with my colleagues in Shanghai and Beijing.

Two weeks ago, this problem started appearing on my system:

MSIEXEC?! No waaaaay!!! This is the Windows Installer. Basically THE piece of software that installs and uninstalls most of the stuff – which come in .msi format – in Windows XP. If it’s fxxked, then it’s dead serious because you can’t install or uninstall stuff on your PC anymore! Technically speaking, Windows is also fxxked though you can still use it with whatever that is still there, with the possibility you can’t update it at all. And this is an office PC I shared with my colleague. It can’t fxxk up!! Not to mention I am the IT Desktop and Server support fellow and thus this is a matter of face!! I MUST and WILL fix it.

So I started by downloading and reinstalling the latest version of Windows Installer. – Failed.

Then I un-installed it, rebooted the machine and reinstalled it. – Failed.

Not giving up as yet, and since the office PCs get stuff installed using packages, I cleared the registry entries indicating its presence to the automated install agent on the PC and fool the system into reinstalling it. – Obviously, it didn’t work either!!

Alright… I give up and eat humble pie. I could have googled it but I guess the computer and Windows win some at times. Above which, I have spent half a day on this crap and googling for the solution may take up even more time. So I backed up whatever I can on the PC to a server share, and did what some IT guys love to do to their users: re-format and re-install.

Of course it went away… and so I happily reinstalled my proggies – including AppLocale – and moved everything from server backup back to the hard disk. And as you realized, I moved them which means they no longer exist on server. Not to mention, because it was done on the same day, the server didn’t even have a backup copy as it didn’t stay until a scheduled backup was done.

As to why AppLocale was reinstalled? Hey, I love talking to the guys in Beijing and Shanghai and there are certain meanings that cannot be conveyed other than in Chinese. Pinyin is crap. It is good as an input editor or for chow angmohs to learn the language, but is it even a language to begin with?

The good times didn’t last very long. Less than 4 days later, it came back and I was on leave. My poor colleague who came in to cover morning duties, must have been quite annoyed and did what I have done before: re-format and re-install.

And the problem went away, along with it… whatever I have saved on that PC for the past few years. Oh well, God’s way of saying “Practice what you preach.” because I have always told my annoyed users who lost all their files to save everything on the server. I just didn’t do so myself.

Problem apparently went away until this morning… and when I logged in, the same error message stared me down in the face as the automated install agent tried to install an update to the PC.

No… this can’t be happening!! Alright, it can happen but… not to me!! This is the worst nightmare for an IT support person and this is… humiliating! The computer has effectively just declared WAR on me.

So now I did what I didn’t do the first round. I typed the error out on Google and did a search. And obviously, it wasn’t very effective at all. There were quite a huge number of entries related to the error message, but none of the solutions were applicable. I won’t go into the details but I was starting to become depressed. The one thing that I have always been proud about, my ability to deal with my own computer problems, has gone down in a pillar of dust like the WTC in NYC did during 9-11. It has caused grievous damage to my pride but I had to seek help.

I asked 2 of my best source of IT solutions in the office. My colleague on sitting 2 floors up and one guy in Tokyo. Both have seen something similar, though not caused by MSIEXEC.EXE itself, and have not got a clue how to solve this particular problem. The message that now came to mind was: “Abandon ye, all hope here…”

Completely devastated, I start backing up my stuff again, ready to do one last format, and I promise myself this time I will just install whatever standard applications available in the office. Nothing fancy. Nothing not authorised. Some how, something in my mind prompted me to ask a user, whom I have introduced AppLocale, to check if he is having the same problem.

And the answer was affirmative. Now I have a bigger problem. Rebuilding my PC isn’t an issue. The IT department rebuilds PC all the time. But to rebuild a user’s PC would have been an issue because arrangements has to be made with the user, and test will have to be done to ensure everything works when he logs on. And what happens if the damned problem – like it had on my PC – resurrects itself again? Like it or not, I have to spend time to deal with this.

I went back to the AppLocale page where I downloaded it to take a closer look and it was completely demoralizing. It says, ‘This application is distributed “as is”, with no obligations or technical support from Microsoft Corporation.’

Ok, but AppLocale is now confirmed as the apparent culprit, and so it is time to include it in the search parameters on Google. After all, one of the rules of an IT support guy says: Once you have found the cause of the problem, then it is likely some poor fxxk out there will have come across the same problem and found the solution. And here’s one of the interesting entries:

If you can’t read Chinese, you are already fxxked. And this is in the traditional script which means you maybe doubly-fxxked anyway. But thank God I was given a mother who taught me to love the Chinese language!!

What it saying is basically: “The use of AppLocale may create a file AppLoc.Tmp in the C:WindowsAppPatch folder. This may cause errors in the execution of Windows Installer…”

Interesting. And so I went to look for the file AppLoc.Tmp and there it was sitting pretty in the folder indicated. Wary that I might be deleting a file that might break Windows, I renamed the file instead of deleting it. Crossed my fingers, and hit the update on the automated install agent again… and… the problem went away!!

Blast… it’s one of those days I pay a heavy price for doing things to my computer. It sort of happens once every year. Last year it was stopping the virus scanner service on my home PC resulting in a virus infection.

But overall, it was quite an exciting experience. I once again learn something new.