In my efforts to get my company’s demo rooms up and running with the solutions we offer to our customers, I have been faced with numerous Windows errors and issues. The one I have been faced with today was an error message stating “The system administrator has set policies to prevent this installation.” However, I am the administrator and I haven’t set any policies on this machine yet!There are two methods I have seen to try to resolve this problem. However, mine was solved by employing the second method listed.
- Click Start, click Run, type regedit, and then click OK.
- In Registry Editor, locate and then click the following registry key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Safer\CodeIdentifiers
Note Before you modify this key, we recommend that you back up this key. To do this, right-click CodeIdentifiers, and then click Export. Save the file to a location where you can find it on the computer.
- Change the PolicyScope registry value. To do this, double-click PolicyScope, and then change the setting from 0 to 1.
- Close Registry Editor.
- Click Start, click Run, type cmd, and then click OK to open a Command Prompt window.
- At the command prompt, type the following command, and then press ENTER:
net stop msiserver
This command stops the Windows Installer service if the service is currently running in the background. When the service has stopped, close the Command Prompt window, and then go to step 7.
Note If you receive the following message at the command prompt, close the Command Prompt window, and then go to step 7:
The Windows Installer service is not started - Install the package that you were trying to install when you received the error message that is mentioned in the “Symptoms” section.
- After you install the package, repeat steps 1 and 2. Then, change the PolicyScope registry value back to 0.
- If you disconnected the computer from a domain, re-join the domain, and then restart the computer.Note If you did not disconnect the computer from a domain, you do not have to restart the computer.
If the previous steps do not resolve the issue, follow these steps:
- Click Start, click Run, type control admintools, and then click OK.
- Double-click Local Security Policy.
- Click Software Restriction Policies.Note If no software restrictions are listed, right-click Software Restriction Policies, and then click Create New Policy.
- Under Object Type, double-click Enforcement.
- Click All users except local administrators, and then click OK.
- Restart the computer.
Important After you follow the previous steps, local administrators can install the .msi package or the .msp package. After the package is installed, reset the enforcement level by following the previous steps. In step 5, click All users instead of All users except local administrators.