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?Error opening installation log file. Verify that the specified location exists and is writable.? Message Displays When Uninstalling

Summary

Information on the error message that occurs during uninstallation: ?Error opening installation log file. Verify that the specified location exists and is writable.?

Symptoms

When attempting to uninstall a product, a Windows Installer window appears and gives the following error message:
Error opening installation log file. Verify that the specified location exists and is writable.

Cause

Microsoft has acknowledged this issue as a problem in Windows 7 Professional. More information on this issue is provided in the following article:

?Error opening installation log file. Verify that the specified location exists and is writable.? error when attempting to uninstall an application

Please note that this is not an issue with InstallShield but with Windows itself.

Workaround

As described in the Microsoft KB article mentioned above, the workaround to this issue is to manually restart explorer.exe through the Task Manager.

Alternatively, the error occurs when MSI logging is enabled. Disable MSI logging in the registry as a long term fix. The registry keys for MSI logging are provided here:

How to enable Windows Installer logging
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?Error opening installation log file. Verify that the specified location exists and is writable.? Message Displays When Uninstalling