The Windows Installer, when it works properly, is a very nice way to manage third party software installations on Windows based computers. When it doesn't work properly, the errors can be nothing short of cryptic.
When you try to install an MSI file, you may see an error like this:
"The installer has encountered an unexpected error installing this package. This may indicate a problem with this package. The error code is 2738."The error code is the key, as different problems generate different error codes.
In the case of a 2738 error code, the problem is that the VBScript runtime has been unregistered from Windows. Fortunately, this is easy to fix.
Click Start-> Run... In the text box, type
cmd
then click OK. Then type the following commands, pressing the Enter/Return key after each line:
cd %systemroot%\system32
regsvr32 vbscript.dll
You should see confirmation that the registration was successful. If you don't, or you get an error message instead, something went wrong that might take a technician to find.
If you're running a 64-bit version of Windows Vista or Windows 7, you'll also need to type these commands:
cd %systemroot%\syswow64
regsvr32 vbscript.dll
Again, you should see the confirmation dialog. Finally, type:
exit
to close the command prompt.
Now, try your installation again. Provided this was the only problem with your Windows install, it should now work properly.