Windows Installer doesn’t finish determining disk space requirements

On my Windows Server 2008 VPC several programs could not be installed by running the .msi file. Before starting the actual installation process, the Windows Installer checks how much disk space is available, but it doesn’t finish this process. It pops up with the message “please wait while the installer finishes determining your disk space requirements”, and after a few hours it still told me to wait. I’ve seen several posts on the internet about users with the same message, but nobody shows the reason why the Microsoft Installer can’t finish determining the disk space requirements.

By executing the msi via the command-line msiexec command, I can get passed that message on my VPC with enough disk space. Use the following command as a workaround:

msiexec /i filename.msi

See the comments for other suggested workarounds. I found a blog post that says that temporarily removing your VirtualPC Virtual Machine additions does the trick, see Donn Felker's "Cannot install programs on Virtual PC" blog post. It didn't work for me, but maybe it helps you.

 

Published Wed, Jan 14 2009 11:29 PM by Harold van de Kamp
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Comments

# re: Windows Installer doesn’t finish determining disk space requirements

Friday, January 23, 2009 8:44 PM by Rodolfo

even running the command-line with elevated command prompt, i still get the same message...

don't know what to do in this case.

# re: Windows Installer doesn’t finish determining disk space requirements

Monday, February 09, 2009 6:12 AM by anonymous

try this...

msiexec /package <filename.MSI> /qr

this will run the installation with reduced UI.

# re: Windows Installer doesn’t finish determining disk space requirements

Friday, February 13, 2009 3:49 PM by Daniel Revell

msiexec /package <filename.MSI> /qr

Worked for me. Thanks

# VSeWSS 1.3 - Please wait while the installer finishes determining your disk space requirements

Tuesday, March 03, 2009 9:54 PM by Corey Roth - DotNetMafia.com - Tip of the Day

I have been working on creating a new Windows Server 2008 virtual machine lately, so I decided to grab

# VSeWSS 1.3 - Please wait while the installer finishes determining your disk space requirements

Tuesday, March 03, 2009 11:15 PM by Mirrored Blogs

I have been working on creating a new Windows Server 2008 virtual machine lately, so I decided to grab

# re: Windows Installer doesn’t finish determining disk space requirements

Tuesday, April 07, 2009 3:52 PM by The Luddite Developer

I appear to be having a similar problem on a stand alone dell running XP SP3, VS2008 SP1, and .NET 3.5 SP1.

MS TLA WTF???

theludditedeveloper.wordpress.com/.../please-wait-while-the-installer-finishes-determining-your-disk-space-requirements

# re: Windows Installer doesn’t finish determining disk space requirements

Tuesday, April 07, 2009 4:02 PM by Andrew

Thank you very much this did the trick!  ASP.NET MVC 1.0 was giving me this issue.

# re: Windows Installer doesn’t finish determining disk space requirements

Wednesday, April 15, 2009 12:40 PM by faister

IT WORKS! you're a life saver, i was about to leave my vpc for a couple of hours and hopefully it finishes determining the disk space requirements. however i noticed that there is no disk activity on my VPC instance. that's when i searched and found your blog. thanks! :)

# re: Windows Installer doesn’t finish determining disk space requirements

Wednesday, April 22, 2009 5:19 PM by Skip Sailors

Thank you.  msiexec /i <package> did it for me.

I have seen this before.  I am glad to have a workaround, but I wish I understood the causes(s).  I sometimes have to build MSI packages myself.  What do I have to do to avoid my own package doing this?

# re: Windows Installer doesn’t finish determining disk space requirements

Saturday, May 09, 2009 11:15 AM by Hokuszpok

The same problem probably appeaers after installing SP3 for XP. The problem can be resolved with re-gestration of the insllerr files FOR ONCE! (beacasue the at the second installation appears again...

I have used these commands:

regsvr32 c:\windows\system32\msi.dll

regsvr32 c:\windows\system32\msisip.dll

regsvr32 c:\windows\system32\msihnd.dll

%Windir%\system32\msiexec /unregserver

%Windir%\system32\msiexec /unreg

%Windir%\system32\msiexec /regserver

regedit /s "Installer2Manual.reg"

RMDIR /S /Q %TEMP%

MD %TEMP%

del /q %systemdrive%\temp\*.*

del /q %systemdrive%\%windir%\temp\*.*

# re: Windows Installer doesn’t finish determining disk space requirements

Tuesday, June 09, 2009 9:43 AM by James White

msiexec /package <filename.MSI> /qr

worked for me!! Thanks

# Please wait...

Monday, June 22, 2009 4:48 PM by Mark Wolzak

I've seen this error in numerous occasions now and even so many solutions on the web: 'please

# re: Windows Installer doesn’t finish determining disk space requirements

Wednesday, June 24, 2009 2:12 PM by Happy Guy

The option /package /qr did the trick for me on Windows 2008 server 32bit virtual machine.

Thank you people. Getting Azure SDK running without URL rewriting wasn't an option :)

# re: Windows Installer doesn’t finish determining disk space requirements

Sunday, June 28, 2009 9:56 PM by twoj

Bitten by yet another bug. Platform: Microsoft Virtual PC2007, Guest OS: Vista Ultimate SP2 integrated, basic install, no additional software added and experiences problem with the windows installer. I believe the problem is with the Windows installer v4.5 and PC2007 although i have seen it reported that people are experiencing this without VPC. I also googled to see if its possible to uninstall or revert back to a previous Windows installer but if it is possible it doesn't seem easy. I'm aware i can suppress the interaction to install the program but i find this pretty bad that MS can't even validate that their installer works straight out of the box on thier main virtualization program.

# VirutalPC上のPCにMSI形式のファイルをインストールすると怒られる?

Thursday, July 02, 2009 9:33 AM by かるあ のメモ

何となくTFS以外のCI(断続的インテグレーション)環境を作ろうと思って、TeamCity + VisualSVN の環境をVirutalPC上のWindows Server 2008に作成していたわけです。 とりあえずVisualSVNのインストールとTeamCityのインストールが終わったので、VisualStudio用のSubversionプラグインであるAnkhSVNをインストールしようとしたら、こんなメッセージが出てインストールできない。 Please wait whi...

# Virtual PC(Windows Server 2008)에 ASP.NET MVC Install시 문제점

Monday, August 03, 2009 11:22 AM by RedPlus

<p>Virtual PC에 Windows Server 2008을 설치한 상태에서</p> <p>ASP.NET MVC V1.0을 설치시 아래와 같은 에러메시지가 나타나면서,</p> <p>아무리 기다려도 설치가 진행되지 않는 상태가 발생하는 경우가 있습니다.</p> <p>“pleas ...

# re: Windows Installer doesn’t finish determining disk space requirements

Monday, August 17, 2009 11:55 PM by Ernesto

msiexec /package <filename.MSI> /qr Works to me, thanks so much...

# “Please wait while the installer finishes determining your disk space requirements” message drives me nuts!

Friday, August 28, 2009 10:38 PM by Jean-Paul Smit

At the moment I’m setting up a new BizTalk Server 2009 VPC with the BizTalk Deployment Framework 5, BizUnit

# re: Windows Installer doesn’t finish determining disk space requirements

Monday, November 02, 2009 1:38 AM by Ben Szymkow

msiexec /package <filename.MSI> /qr

this sorted it out for me. thanks for the solution Daniel Revell.

# re: Windows Installer doesn’t finish determining disk space requirements

Wednesday, November 11, 2009 6:18 AM by baskint

seems to be working on a vm machine.  trying to install latest ankhsvn

# re: Windows Installer doesn’t finish determining disk space requirements

Wednesday, November 18, 2009 11:14 PM by Julian Dominguez

Thanks!

"msiexec /package <filename.MSI> /qr" also did it for me.

Consider updating the blog post itself with this solution.

# re: Windows Installer doesn’t finish determining disk space requirements

Monday, November 23, 2009 1:37 PM by Kiran Cherupally

"msiexec /package <filename.MSI> /qr" worked for me. It saved my time. Thanks a lot.

# re: Windows Installer doesn’t finish determining disk space requirements

Tuesday, November 24, 2009 9:31 AM by krishna

thank you very musch

/qr switch worked fine with my webdav installation on windows 2008 VPC

Thanks a lot

# re: Windows Installer doesn’t finish determining disk space requirements - solved

Wednesday, November 25, 2009 10:17 AM by Gopi Nathan

Solved.

Windows 2008 on VirtualPC trying to install asp.net mvc 1.0

Got the error ...

Now got it working with manually giving

C:\Users\Administrator\Desktop>msiexec /package AspNetMVC1.msi  /qr worked for me. Thanks.

It is irritating to see that such errors are not documented and communicated by the vendor in a proper way in the package or their site!

# re: Windows Installer doesn’t finish determining disk space requirements

Wednesday, November 25, 2009 10:18 AM by Gopi Nathan

C:\Users\Administrator\Desktop>msiexec /package AspNetMVC1.msi  /qr  worked for me on Windows 2008 on a VirtualPC

Thanks.

# re: Windows Installer doesn’t finish determining disk space requirements

Tuesday, December 01, 2009 8:46 PM by Tony

Thanks!  the /i helped me install Strawberry Perl!

# re: Windows Installer doesn’t finish determining disk space requirements

Friday, December 04, 2009 3:33 PM by Bill Seddon

Great!  The msiexec /package <file> /qr command let me install the Azure SDK on a new machine.

# re: Windows Installer doesn’t finish determining disk space requirements

Monday, December 21, 2009 11:16 AM by ariel

Thank you, it works great!!

# re: Windows Installer doesn’t finish determining disk space requirements

Tuesday, February 02, 2010 12:22 PM by d3m0n

just renaming the .MSI file worked for me!?!?

# re: Windows Installer doesn’t finish determining disk space requirements

Friday, February 05, 2010 11:51 PM by mcp3000

My install package requires that I enter the Product Key -- is there a way to enter this using msiexec?  When I try the /qr solution, the installer stops and tells me I have entered an invalid product key (because I have skipped that screen).

# re: Windows Installer doesn’t finish determining disk space requirements

Monday, February 15, 2010 3:55 PM by Bard

I simply moved the msi to the program files folder. It worked beautifully.

# re: Windows Installer doesn’t finish determining disk space requirements

Saturday, February 20, 2010 12:57 AM by Ben

"Trying to install FTP7.5 on IIS7 32bit on Windows Server 2008 STD SP2 on Virtual PC 2007"

open elevated command prompt and just execute "ftp7_x86_75.msi" did it for me.

(on the iis.net website it says "msiexec /i FTP 7_x86_75.msi" which results in the "Please wait while the installer determining your disk space requirements".

forever..."

# re: Windows Installer doesn’t finish determining disk space requirements

Wednesday, February 24, 2010 12:49 PM by drweb86

Thank's guy!

# re: Windows Installer doesn’t finish determining disk space requirements

Thursday, February 25, 2010 5:59 AM by Jim

Had to enter the product ID to make this work but the following worked for me (real key omitted of course):

msiexec /package PRJPROE.MSI /qr PIDKEY=xxxxyyyyxxxxyyyy

# re: Windows Installer doesn’t finish determining disk space requirements

Thursday, March 04, 2010 5:11 PM by James

I got this message when I tried to run an .MSI off a share from another PC.

Once I copied the .MSI to the local machine's desktop, the problem went away.

# re: Windows Installer doesn’t finish determining disk space requirements

Friday, March 12, 2010 11:44 PM by RB

This is what I did for XP Pro SP3 and it worked

Downloaded & Ran "Windows Installer CleanUp Utility"

Downloaded & Ran "Windows Installer 4.5"

was able to install with no problem since.

# re: Windows Installer doesn’t finish determining disk space requirements

Tuesday, March 16, 2010 3:33 AM by Icks

"msiexec /i filename.msi" didn't but "msiexec /package <filename.MSI> /qr" worked for me aswell.

Thanks guys

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