Ohhh... I forgot.

HELLO FROM RUSSIA! )

Hello everybody.

Hobbs - Try this: Turn of your anti virus, then start setup.

Thanks, Pennedragon, I blew it. I forgot the command. The curren version of SFC, Hobbs, won't run without a command. Actually I forgot that that's not the best way to start it, anyway, since it's better to run as administrator, also. It's best to run it from a DOS command prompt that you use the run as administrator right click command to start. Here's how and what to do if it can't repair everything:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/929833

In Vista, all the files are now stored on the machine. The only reason you should need the DVD is if your system becomes unbootable. You can use the DVD to get into your "repair environment", as MS puts it, but only if pressing F11 or selecting the recovery option after pressing F8 doesn't work. SFC, among other things, can be run from the repair/recovery environment.

SFC used the CD in XP to repair corrupted system files.

To run SFC in Vista Start>Run> sfc /scannow

Sfc /scannow may have some extra codes to delineate scan parameters. I don't know what they are. You might also have to have the CD that came with your computer in the computer at the same time. I just ran the scan on my Vista Home Basic machine. I didn't need any extra delimiters or the Windows CD.

I'm sorry, I didn't make myself clear enough. I'm not asking if you can download from other sources, I'm asking you if you can install software you get from someplace else. I assume that you can, I'm just not sure if that's what you mean. Right now, I don't know that you've done anything, or that your system is at fault in anyway. I suggested that you run error correction - in other words, checkdisk (chkdsk) - and SFC to try and find out.

You may still want to try run as administrator. With UAC off, I'm not sure that the installs are automatically run as administrator. I don't believe they are. I believe that turning the UAC off just turns off the nag box. A lot of people over the years have had trouble with some of the GOTD in Vistas because they need to run the setup program as administrator. If you want today's giveaway, and it doesn't work normally, running as adminstrator might help you get it. And then you'd know that's the problem. It may not be your machine at all, just the need to run as administrator. As I said, something is causing problems in the install after the files are unpacked.

Even if you can't run SFC, you should still do error checking, if you haven't already. Also, what's the problem with SFC. What happens when you try and run it? There might be a clue there. If Windows says it can't find it, for example, that might be an indication of corruption on your disk. Also, are you having any other probems not related to GOTD? That might be a help in narrowing it down.

And, as Robert says, I hope your trying more than once. You can get incomplete copies if you're having any download glitches. That happens a lot.

It could simply be an incomplete/corrupt archive.Try downloading that file again from GOTD (and extract it before installing it).

I can download off other sites no problem. Just cant install stuff from gaotd. I used to be able too but not now :| Dont know what i did. UAC is turned off and the pc is new. I did a hdd ckdsk scan not long ago about 6 weeks. But sfc dont work on this pc :o used to run on my xp machine but dont run on this one :p so i dont know whats up :|

Welcome to the forum, Hobbs. The first question I would ask is if you've recently had a succesful installation of anything from other sources. If you have, then what I'm about to say may be off base. But, if you haven't:

It looks to me from that one example that Windows is having trouble fetching files that it has put in a temporary folder for the installation, which, as you may be aware, is a standard way Windows installs a lot of things: unpack to a temp folder and then do the install from there. Even if you've specified another place to unpack the files, Vista deflects some unpacked files and some installed files to places like the AppData and ProgramData folders. No sense making it simple if you're Microsoft! To me, especially if you have problems installing programs from other sources, this would indicate some damage - hopefully minor - on your system. Maybe some damage to your .Net Framework, the basic underlying architecture that Vista runs on. It correlates to the old Visual Basic runtime libraries, (some of which are incorporated into the new system for backwards compatibility) if you've heard of them.

First, are you running the installs as Administrator (or running from your administrator accounts)? Under Vista, some of the GOTDs need to be installed (and sometimes run) that way. If you're not familiar with that option, when you RIGHT click on the programs you see "Run as Administrator" (obviously, if you're not already in your admin account). Select that, and it will run. It should trip your User Account Control, unless it's turned off, to get you're permission to run as adminstrator. However, some of the GOTDs do this automatically. You can tell because the icon will have the standard Windows 4 color security shield icon grafted on in the lower right hand corner, though it's tiny. Those should already trip your UAC. If you've had trouble installing programs that already run as adminstrator, then this tip won't help.

Have you done error checking recently? If not, I'd do that, including checking for bad sectors, especially if your hard disk has got some mileage on it. I'd also run System File Checker. I don't know if you've heard of that. It's an old tool from the Win 98 days that Microsoft has hidden on you're system so the IT pros can you use it, because, after all, the rest of us are too stupid in their eyes. It can find and fix damaged system files. If you're using the new start menu, type SFC into the start search box. If you're using the classic menu, type it into the Run command box. SFC often can't repair everything, especially since Vista has so many more security restrictions (which, unfortunately can get messed up and may be related to your problem), but it will at least give you a log to read so you could find out if anything's still bad and even try to replace the bad files by hand. The bad news is: you need a workaround to read the log and because of the security restrictions, replacing the files by hand is a hassle. Been there, done that. But, that would be down the road, anyway. I'd run both of those tools, first and see if that fixes the problem.

Also, technically, a System Restore (back to an earlier date) might fix any damage, but I think that would be way premature. No reason to use a System Restore if you haven't even verified that you're machine has any damaged files. There wouldn't even be any way to decide on how far back to restore the settings.

Good luck and let us know what you figure out. :)

Every time i try and install a program form here i always get a runtime error of some sort

I run:
vista ultimate 32bit
mozilla fire fox latest
kaspersky internet security 2009
I am in Western Australia

the error i get is:
Runtime error (at89:1014)

Cannot open file at C:\Users\****\AppData\local\temp\is-U3SEC.temp\wizzardimage.bmp.