Installing WIRESHARK/WinPCap on Windows 8 RTM

        Windows 8 was RTM’d last week and as a curious soul I upgraded to RTM. Once done, I was loading my machine with all the tools that I use everyday. This includes the networking tools like Network Monitor and WIRESHARK. Both have their own advantages. I was able to install Network Monitor without any issues. However, I ran into problem when I was trying to install WIRESHARK on Windows 8. I was always greeted with the following error:

WinPCap installer error on Windows 8

Go to this page to download the WIRESHARK Installer: WIRESHARK

Running it as administrator doesn’t help either. Well, selecting either of the options won’t help. So here is what we need to do.

Solution

        It’s a simple solution. We need to run the WinPCap installer in Windows 7 compatibility mode. Most of you would have got this hint. For those who haven’t please refer the below instructions.

        I am going to use 7-Zip to simplify our approach. You could download it from here: Download 7-Zip. I am using 7-Zip as it allows to extract contents from a installer file.

1. Install 7-zip and extract the WinPCap installer file to any other folder on to your disk. If you open the archive, you can see the WinPCap installer file as shown below:
   
2. Right click the exe and select Properties.
3. Go to the Compatibility tab.
4. Click on “Change Setting for all users”
5. Select the check box “Run this program in compatibility mode for” and select Windows 7 from the drop down as shown below:
   
6. Also check the option to run this program under the privilege of an administrator.
7. Click on Ok and then run WinPCap installer again. You will again see a warning as we saw earlier.
8. Click the 2nd option “Run the program without getting help”, this will take you through the rest of the installation.

Voila! It is installed successfully.

The same has been suggested as a solution in the WIRESHARK discussion forums too. I have outlined the steps for simplicity.