MSN Search Toolbar Won’t Upgrade or Uninstall

 

Don’t you just hate it when you get a bug in somebody’s software – and you try to uninstall it but can’t?

Nothing drives me nuts more.  At minimum, any user should be allowed to remove software from a system they own at anytime without being trapped into a situation were they’ve got someone’s crazy, buggy app polluting their system.  But that’s exactly the scenario I had recently with the MSN Search Toolbar.  To make matters worse, it doesn’t appear that any other third parties have fixed this problem either – and only a couple of others I found after reviewing Google / newsgroups and other sources on the subject appeared to ever encounter it.

 

Well, hooray for MSN’s software testing practices.  But even the beset of ’em won’t always catch every bug and, dammit, I wanna uninstall or at least be allowed to upgrade.  But that’s the problem, you see.  Due to a Windows XP crash during the upgrade from MSN Search Toolbar v02.01.0000.2214 to v02.05.0000.1082, subsequent attempts to either remove the toolbar completely or reapply the upgrade to build 1082 failed and I was left without any remedy and lots of broken link icons labeled "Search Desktop".

The solution?  Luckily, I had a copy of the older build’s .MSI (installer) file and discovered that by following the steps outlined below, I could fix the problem.  The fix, accompanied by the earlier build’s installer file should resolve the problem for anyone else who had the misfortune of my experience and I’m sharing both here for their benefit.

 

The .MSI file in question and distribution of it may be protected by copyright – I dunno.  However, MSN’s support site is extremely unsupportive (there are no bug fixes or troubleshooting articles of any kind from what I saw).  Therefore, I’ll respond kindly to those who e-mail me directly at ross.holder@gmail.com requesting to know where they can get a copy.

Date: 07/16/2005 08:48:23 PM
Applicaiton Causing Exception: MSN Search Tool v02.05.0000.1082

Source .EXE/.DLL(s):

IEXPLORE.EXE
MsnSearchToolbarSetup_en-us.exe
msntb.dll

 

Exception Description:

After installing the MSN Search ToolBar, an installer error occurs, following which execution of the installer package in the "All Users" folder fails. Specifically, when any attempt is made to uninstall the application, or during repeated reinstallation attempts, a prompt for a valid installer package appears as follows:

 

Upon providing a path to either an old or (more likely) current .msi package, the following prompt appears:

 

 

Subsequently, the installer exits.  The Windows error log records the following info:

 

Event Type: Error

Event Source:     MsiInstaller

Event Category:   None

Event ID:   11714

Date:       7/16/2005

Time:       8:44:24 PM

User:       MACHINE\username

Computer:   MACHINE

Description:

Product: MSN Search Toolbar — Error 1714. The older version of MSN Search Toolbar cannot be removed.  Contact your technical support group.  System Error 1612.

 

For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.

Data:

0000: 7b 37 44 31 44 43 42 42   {7D1DCBB

0008: 41 2d 46 36 46 35 2d 34   A-F6F5-4

0010: 32 42 34 2d 42 39 30 42   2B4-B90B

0018: 2d 46 30 34 41 43 45 34   -F04ACE4

0020: 44 46 44 36 43 7d         DFD6C} 

 

Resolution:

• Locate a copy of the appropriate .MSI for the version currently installed (in this case – 02.01.0000.2214)

• add that version of the MsnSearchToolbar.msi to the folder propmted for initally (typically C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\MSN Search Toolbar2.01.0000.2214)

• Ensure that the address bar in the prompt dialogue refers to the legacy .msi file and click "OK"

•  The (un)installation process should continue normally, prompting for a restart at the very end.