Software installation problem on Windows 2000, another instance of Setup.exe running

This applies to:

• Microsoft Windows 2000 Advanced Server
• Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional
• Microsoft Windows 2000 Server

Summary

Running Windows 2000 Server.

There is a strange problem occurs when trying to install some software, upon running the software setup program there is an error which causes the setup program to fail because it says there is already a setup.exe running.

We checked and there is a setup.exe process running on the server and we are unable to kill it. Also tried to reboot the server but as soon as it comes back up the process is running again. The process always seems to have the same PID and runs as SYSTEM.

Any idea how I can find out what it is and how can I get rid of it?

Solution

The main things to looking out for are virus / malicious programs / spyware / keyloggers etc. so the usual methods for treating these issues should be applied (ie. Antivirus, antispyware, rootkit detectors etc.)

It is also possible that it could be a continuation of an installation that has failed but requires a reboot and its the part, after the reboot, that has failed.

Take a look at Process Explorer which can be downloaded from,

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sysinternals/utilities/ProcessExplorer.mspx

see if this gives you any clues, it should give you a little more information than the standard one included with Windows, such as paths, dependencies and it should allow you to kill the process.

Issue was resolved with process explorer, it turned out to be Mcafee trying to install an AV component.

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Document ID: SKB0477
Published on: 15 Mar 2007