Windows Live Writer, Error during Install?

24Jan/0814

Windows Live Writer, Error during Install?

I had been trying to install Windows Live Writer for over a month getting several errors and other hindrances and at last now I am privileged to write this first post through Windows Live Writer. Are you among those who are not using Windows Live Writer because you failed to install it? then read ahead as this post might contain solution to your problem.

First I downloaded the installer from get.live.com/writer/. I was initially in an impression that it was WLW installer but it turned up later that the installer is a minimal software titled "Windows Live Installer" and it requires Internet Connection while installation to install WLW and/or other requisite softwares. Now when I tried to install it faced the very first problem... Windows Live Writer requires at least Windows XP SP2 and my XP version dates earlier to release of SP2.

No problem! I decided to download SP2 and thus started my biggest download ever sizing 278,927,592 bytes over a GPRS connection that allows download speed of 2KB-13KB per second. Downloading spanned several days and at last I had the complete SP2 file that I installed only to find that Resolution/adapter settings changed to distort the display. Anyhow I finished with it with proper display only to find another error.

Next, when I tried running the installer, I was greeted with an error message that I require to get Windows Update Agent 5.8.02469 installed. Google search for it unfortunately did not showed Microsoft download site on first page. Solution to this error is posted seperately here. When done the next error message conveyed me that I needed to get Windows Installer 3.1 which did went smoothly as Google SERPs pointed to proper MS page.

Having done all this the installer started up fine. It first requires you to select services/software that you want to install and when done that it checks the system for previous installations, taking time long enough to frustrate you. After it completes the check it starts downloading the Windows Live Writer having approximate size of 5MB. 1% downloaded... 2...90 wow I am nearing finish ... 99 ..99... 99 the installer stuck at 99 for infinitely long time showing no errors etc... At last taking the tough decision I cancelled the installation to start all over again... no luck this time too it did not move ahead of 99%. Now I myself don't believe this but I repeated the process for another 2-3 times and lastly decided that the grapes are sour and that I better get grapes from other locations. I took my last chance to find a direct installer for WLW and luckily got the URL but that turned up to be Windows Live Writer Beta (there was a Beta 2 also, before final release).. that's fine as better content with something than having nothing.

On running the installer I was greeted with message that the installer requires .net framework installed... that was enough... XP does have .net framework installed... did installer meant .net v2 or above and was it the same reason that resulted in WLW Installation using Windows Live Installer getting stuck at 99%... I had enough of last chances but decided to take another and downloaded .net 2.0 redistributable with SP1 (24 MB), installed it and tried installing WLW beta that finished successfully.

After a second of relief I uninstalled the WLW beta to start again with Windows Live installer to install full version and YES this time it crossed 99% to start actual installation and here I am using it for this post and hopefully for more ahead.

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Tagged as: .net 2.0, TechPosts, Update Agent, Windows Live Writer, Windows XP, WLW Leave a comment

Comments (14) Trackbacks (9) ( subscribe to comments on this post )

Jayakanthan
January 30th, 2008 - 07:47

Thats great tutorial, I just followed your steps and it works like charm.. greets..

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John W
February 8th, 2008 - 00:11

We’ve tried using Live writer on our site, but it doesn’t handle the CSS properly. Well, first we couldn’t install it because of the proxy (we were at work). The installer would hang for a very long time and then fail and the error messages are very vague. We also had some issues with text formating and found that it was easier to use WordPress. I wonder if there are any open source desktop publishing programs?

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jasmine borges
March 18th, 2008 - 20:22

thisssss sickssss it doesnt even workk helloooooooo

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Jalaj
March 19th, 2008 - 07:10

@jasmine -
Check for following
SP2 – Service pack 2 installed or not
Windows Update Agent 5.8.02469 or later installed or not
Windows Installer 3.1 installed or not
dot net framework 2.0 or later installed or not

After you have all these WLW should get installed…

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Azzam
March 23rd, 2008 - 08:10

I cannot install msn messenger

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Tholithemba
March 23rd, 2008 - 12:39

well mine is doing the same thing after installing all the stuff that i need.

this is the thing that i get: sorry, this seems to be taking longer than expected, Please bear with us for a few more minutes.

to tell you it end up failing and it says i must try again later but i have done it more then 5 times already help

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jade
May 19th, 2008 - 15:51

I too was stuck at 99% but then waiting for around 5 more minutes at 10kb/sec, it successfully installed itself.

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MeggarK
June 4th, 2008 - 12:18

Related to this issue:

It seems that when running Windows XP SP3 many people are having issues installing windows live applications using the windows live installer. After much googling I have come across a solution. This also solves issues that exist with the windows update service after installing SP3.

Essentially what you need to do is:

1. Download and run the Windows Live Installer Cleanup tool from:

http://download.microsoft.com/download/2/3/0/23036331-516d-4c7e-b9ac-31554a2fec06/WL-Beta-remove.zip

2. Reboot

3. Click START>Run and type ‘command’ to load the console.

4. Type in:

regsvr32 wups2.dll

and press enter.

5. Type exit to leave the console

6. Download and run the windows live installer, it should now work perfectly.

Hope this helps.

-MeggarK

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TonyA
June 30th, 2008 - 15:50

Thanks for this useful information. I have wasted hours trying to install without success.

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gogo
October 5th, 2008 - 21:22

i had that prob. of update agent with downloading th WLMassenger then i followed ur steps n the agent was downloaded successfully..but the problem here is that the installation of WL massenger cant be done!! it is stuck at the step of searching my pc for ( msn and sign-in assistant) and i was notified to try again later.. :S:S what can i do with this??????

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Fix Windows Errors
May 7th, 2009 - 15:08

I found the blog on a newsgroup and read a few posts. Great resource. Bookmarked and looingk forward to reading more future posts

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David
May 16th, 2009 - 14:58

I had the same problem since I got a 64 bits OS. First with XP and then the same thing with Vista. Don´t know if that has something to do with this issue but on 32 OS I never heard about it.

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Sandy
August 29th, 2009 - 05:16

Microsoft is very uncomfortable giving anything free. Therefore they have made sure that you suffer enough during its installation to compensate for the free product they are giving…

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Sandy
August 29th, 2009 - 05:19

And anyway , thanks for the detailed description.I am still fighting the ‘This is not a valid win 32 application ” error..

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