Directory Name is Invalid error

[Need Assitance!]

I just purchased a new HP computer with windows vista. When I went to
install my other new purchase; a copy of Office Ultimate 2007 I get the
following error.

"Directory Name is Invalid"

It's not looking good for our hero! If someone would be so kind as to clue
me in on how to resolve this issue I would appreciate it.

 

[Susan Ramlet]

Hi, Need,

At what point does this message occur? Did you purchase Office "off the
shelf"?

 

[Greg]

I'm having the same problem. When I try to install a program, no matter what
disk i put it on and even copied the file to a CD it tells me the directory
is invalid. I also ran Chkdsk. Need Help

 

[Bob Buckland ?:-\)]

Hi Greg,

Is this from a download of Office 2007? If so, try using something other than Nero to try to create the CD.

=============
I'm having the same problem. When I try to install a program, no matter what
disk i put it on and even copied the file to a CD it tells me the directory
is invalid. I also ran Chkdsk. Need Help
--
Greg H. <<
--

Bob Buckland ?
MS Office System Products MVP

*Courtesy is not expensive and can pay big dividends*

 

[Manuel Rodriguez]

I have just the same problem here. My copy of Office Ultimate 2007 is
legitimate and bought it from CompUSA. Every time I ran the setup program
from DVD, a pop-up windows appears asking me to browse for a file that
supposedly setup cannot find. I browse thru the designated folder and the
next thing that appears is a pop-up record indicating "Invalid Location". I
go thru the Windows Explorer and I see the file and even I open it with no
problem. The strange thing is that everytime I ran the setup, a diffent
notification of appears for a different file that setup cannot find. I copied
the setup files to hard disk and ran setup with the same sintoms as
described. I even tried setup with another freshly installed Vista system
with 32 bit.

Please advise on what needs to be done to resolve this issue.

 

[Susan Ramlet]

Hi, Manuel,

It sounds like a similar error, but the error message you are reporting is
different from the original poster. Could you post the text of the popup
windows? For example, the first one that asks you to browse for a file.
What message does it give you?

I would originally think you have a dirty or scratched CD, but the fact that
you tried to install from a hard drive copy, as well as a different clean
Vista system, makes me think you may need to contact Product Support to
resolve the issue. Are the two Vista systems identical? Do you have a
Windows XP system to try the installation on, just out of curiosity?

 

[Susan Ramlet]

One more thing--are you running as administrator? That is, you have access
to all portions of the hard drive?

 

[Greg]

Susan,
There is nothing sinister like scratched disk etc. I t's like we all
explained, no matter where the exe file is located and you try to execute the
file a message comes up saying that where the file is located is invalid and
will not execute. You can copy the file to a CD and it tells me that the disk
location is invalid. I have Ultimate also and I'm not sure that is an
inherent problem with Ultimate. Mine started yesterday and nothing I did
yesterday was out of the ordinary. I was trying to install Microsoft
All-in-One after downloading it from Microsoft website. I thought it was just
that particular software so I went to Norton 360 and downloaded that and it
did the same thing telling me that the directory is invalid. I'm not able to
install any programs. I did a restore and that did not fix it. Please don't
read anything more into it than it is.

Thanks for the help.

 

[Susan Ramlet]

Thanks, Greg. You may need to contact Microsoft PSS, then, if peer support
isn't of any assistance. If Norton 360 is also doing this, then Office
isn't likely the issue, either, and perhaps it's related to the operating
system.

 

[Bob Buckland ?:-\)]

Hi Greg,

There can be a number of reasons for that error message. As you're experiencing it in more than one application I'd guess that it
could be an issue being found by the MS Installer program rather than the apps themselves when he installer looks to create temp
files for the installation processs.

Sometimes this can be from the Windows environment variable for
TEMP= or TMP= (or other) pointing back to a CD or DVD drive or to the root folder of a hard drive, or to a user account mapping of
a network root drive to a user account. If you go to Start=>Run and type in %temp% or %tmp% do you go to your 'regular' temp
folder and are the permissions on that folder read/write/delete?

While in that temp location look for the Office setup logs. They may show more detail on the folder it's banging up against. (With
Windows Vista some folks find that temporarily turning off the User Access Control (UAC) lets things proceed.

===========
Susan,
There is nothing sinister like scratched disk etc. I t's like we all
explained, no matter where the exe file is located and you try to execute the
file a message comes up saying that where the file is located is invalid and
will not execute. You can copy the file to a CD and it tells me that the disk
location is invalid. I have Ultimate also and I'm not sure that is an
inherent problem with Ultimate. Mine started yesterday and nothing I did
yesterday was out of the ordinary. I was trying to install Microsoft
All-in-One after downloading it from Microsoft website. I thought it was just
that particular software so I went to Norton 360 and downloaded that and it
did the same thing telling me that the directory is invalid. I'm not able to
install any programs. I did a restore and that did not fix it. Please don't
read anything more into it than it is.

Thanks for the help.
--
Greg H. >>
--

Bob Buckland ?
MS Office System Products MVP

*Courtesy is not expensive and can pay big dividends*

 

[dman]

I found this information on Technet and it seems to explain this
problem.

User Account Control: Only elevate UIAccess applications that are
installed in secure locations
There are two possible values:

· The system will only give UIAccess privileges and user rights to
executables that are launched from under %ProgramFiles% or %windir%.
The ACLs on these directories ensure that the executable is not user-
modifiable (which would otherwise allow elevation of privilege).
UIAccess executables launched from other locations will launch without
additional privileges (i.e. they will run "asInvoker").

· Disabled - The location checks are not done, so all UIAccess
applications will be launched with the user's full access token upon
user approval.

Default = Enabled

Supposedly this option is access via the secpol.msc snap-in. I do not
know how to access or get to that but I think I could and then change
that option to disabled it would solve the problem.

Please reply if you know how to get to this option.

Thanks,
Donovan