Software engineer by day, gadget geek 24/7

I spent a few hours today troubleshooting an IIS website .msi installer problem. This post serves as a future reference for myself.

The installer error log showed:

Because the nearest readable line referred to certificates, I got drafted to fix it.

After some fumbling, I found these entries in the security event log:

Event Type:        Failure Audit
Event Source:    Security
Event Category:                Account Logon
Event ID:              680
Date:                     2/6/2008
Time:                     1:50:39 PM
User:                     NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM
Computer:          XXXXXX
Description:
Logon attempt by:           XXXXXXXXX
 Logon account:                IWAM_XXXXXX
 Source Workstation:      XXXXXX
 Error Code:        0xC000006A

Event Type:        Failure Audit
Event Source:    Security
Event Category:                Logon/Logoff
Event ID:              529
Date:                     2/6/2008
Time:                     1:29:17 PM
User:                     NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM
Computer:          XXXXXX
Description:
Logon Failure:
                Reason:                                Unknown user name or bad password
                User Name:        IWAM_XXXXXX
                Domain:                               XXXXXX
                Logon Type:       3
                Logon Process:  Advapi
                Authentication Package:               Negotiate
                Workstation Name:        XXXXXX
                Caller User Name:           XXXXXX$
                Caller Domain:   XXXXXX
                Caller Logon ID: (0x0,0x3E7)
                Caller Process ID:             3772
                Transited Services:          -
                Source Network Address:            -
                Source Port:       -

After more (and more) web search, I found the solution:

1. adsutil.vbs set w3svc/wamuserpass “some_password”
2. Go to GUI and set matching password for IWAM_XXXXXX
3. synciwam.vbs

Reference:

• http://www.mcse.ms/message1176011.html
• http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;297989

Another reason why installers might fail, though not the case today, is that the Distributed Transaction Coordinator (DTC) service could be disabled.