Installation of Visual C++ Redistributable 2005(X64) may fail with error code 2381

ISSUE DESCRIPTION AND SYMPTOM:

Installation of VC Redistributable 2005(X64), a prerequisite for a third party backup software in our case, failed with an explicit error message-

“The installer has encountered an unexpected error installing this package. This may indicate a problem with this package. The error code is 2381. The arguments are: H:\, , ”

We could additionally see a similar error being logged under the event viewer(start >> run >> eventvwr) as follows:

Product: Microsoft Visual C++ 2005 Redistributable (x64) -- The installer has encountered an unexpected error installing this package. This may indicate a problem with this package. The error code is 2381. The arguments are: H:\, ,

INFERENCE AND RESOLUTION:

As has been documented under https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa372835(v=vs.85).aspx, error code 2381 is mapped as the following-

We could see from the error that it’s pointing to H:\. While it was possible to manually open the referenced location (H:\), checking its security tab out of curiosity showed that it was almost empty. We added permissions (in accordance with the standards followed for similar drives) We were however specific about the System account permissions, (as system account context will be used during install) Retried the Visual C++ 2005 Redistributable (x64) installer – it now succeeded. Once this was done, it was also possible to install the third party backup software for which this redistributable was a prerequisite

The above steps were part of a specific solution that applied to a particular machine; the recommended steps to resolve a similar issue (with wider applicability) are given below-

1. Open a CMD window (start  >> run >> CMD)

2. Extract the Visual C++ 2005 redistributable package manually onto an accessible local drive, using the /C and the /T switches

    Sample command-

    C:\temp\vcredist_x64.exe /C /T:“C:\temp\ext”

3. Run the .msi file (located under the extracted contents) to install the package

-Content by Vimal Thiagaraj