IE 7 update - Still broken

After posting to the Microsoft bug board about this, I went about researching the issues. I did learn a fair amount about the logs created when installing IE 7. For instance, I learned that the error that caused all of the ruckus was indeed my denial of updating the start page. At least, that is the way it appears to me. The log tells me that the Access is Denied, but of course, permissions on the registry key in question are just fine. I just simply said, "No, you cannot update that" and this appears to have hosed the entire install. Bad, bad, bad, bad...

But that doesn't explain why the troubleshooting guide wasn't published nor why the uninstall is failing. There is an error which reads "Installation completed with errors." Gee, thanks for the info. This is followed by this message:

Couldn't create setup troubleshooting shortcut on the desktop. HRESULT: 0x8007007f,

Then, this one:

Software Update Rollback failed and Exit Code = 0x5

And, finally, this one:

Internet Explorer 7 Beta 2 has been partially updated and may not work properly.
199.922: Update.exe extended error code = 0x5

Wow, that's certainly informative! After investigating all of that, I found out that in addition to Zone Alarm and Nero popping up error messages, MSN Messenger was no longer able to connect to the Internet. Well, this was all unacceptable. All three programs pointed to the same file: wininet.dll. So, what to do? Well, I ran sfc /scannow and got original files replaced. The Zone Alarm, Nero, and MSN Messenger problems have disappeared, but I was still stuck with a non working integrated version of IE (the stand alone hack mentioned in the previous post works fine).

For kicks I decided to log in as Administrator and see if I could run the uninstall. Nope. IE was throwing up the same error message:

Windows Internet Explorer 7 Beta 2 cannot be uninstalled from this user account. Please log on to the same user account from which it was installed and try again.

Except that originally I was logged in to the same user account and now I was logged in as administrator. Listen, the administrator of the machine should be able to override the user account and do the uninstall. I'm left with the impression that the problem is deeper than that. I tried downloading and installing a fresh version of IE 6, but it throws up (correctly) the error message that I had a newer version installed. Of course, I cannot uninstall the newer version, which is the problem.

Next step was to call Microsoft's support line for IE 7 beta 2. It's a free call during the beta testing. To be honest, I'm pretty skeptical of Microsoft's support lines. I had a hellish time once with MSN (not connected for 6 weeks). Today's experience was better and I learned 2 things after spending 77 minutes on the phone:

1) The support staff is as good as I am at reading Microsoft's published literature regarding the repair steps for IE 7 and...
2) Some people in India apparently have an abiding love for 70s classic rock like The Eagles, Jimi Hendrix, and the like. Who knew?

To be fair to the tech support person, this is a new product and he cannot have fielded many questions about it. He also seemed genuinely interested in helping me resolve the issues. He was patient and so was I. However, the issue remains. He's supposed to call back tomorrow afternoon after doing more research. See, he thinks it's a permissions issue on the registry. I tried to explain that it was likely not that, but rather my interaction with the install. I'm betting that if they ever find a way to uninstall the program and I try a reinstall without denying anything, then it will work just fine. I'm also betting that the uninstall will be an ugly, manual effort at this point.

More tomorrow!