Problems installing Windows Live Messenger on Windows Vista with WLInstaller.exe? Here is the solution!

A few days ago I changed the PC at Work and when I was almost done I tried to install msn. 

I downloaded the installer from the official site of Microsoft. It turned out that the file you got (WLInstaller.exe), is a small (less than 200 KB) application that allows you to install from a single place Windows Live components. One of these components is MSN (Windows Live Messenger).

So far, everything cool.

The problem started when I executed WLInstaller.exe.

After a few seconds to check whether it was possible to install the components of Windows Live on my PC, the installation was stopped saying that it was impossible to install Msn (and the wizard for single-sign-in or something), and gave me the option to create an icon on the desktop to continue installing it later.

The interesting thing is that it failed, but didn't say why. And the possible reasons given did not appear to be the root of the problem (hardware requirements, firewall settings, etc.).. 

Having restarted the installer  several times (installing the latest patches from Windows update in the middle of the process, just in case) and always with no results, I began to look for an alternative: install Msn 7.5 (the latest version before Live).

While downloading the installer of version 7.5, and in a final attempt to avoid the annoying message that warns you that there is a new version available for download, I got the solution for my problem: a full installation of Windows Live Messenger from the official site of Microsoft.

The latter is a complete installer (18 MB) and only msn, with which I could install everything without problems.

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As I stayed with the question of why it had not worked on the first installer, at home I began to investigate a little more about WMInstaller and found what made the installation to fail:  Proxy configuration.

In my work, as in many places, we go out to the Internet through a proxy. This Proxy I have configured on the connection settings from Internet Explorer, so that neither occurred to me to think that the problem could come around.

But what happens is that WLInstaller doesn't use the proxy settings of Internet Explorer, but it takes it from WinHTTP service.

So what we need to do is set the WinHTTP proxy for the service, which is as follows: 

Windows Vista

1) Open a command prompt (cmd.exe) with administrator rights (right-click on cmd.exe, "Run as administrator")

2) Run the command 

netsh WinHTTP set proxy [proxy]:[port] 

[Proxy] should be replaced by IP or the name of the Proxy 
[port] by the port. 

3) Run WLInstaller.exe normally. 


Windows XP 

1) Open a command prompt (cmd.exe) 

2) 
- Option A 

Run the command 

Proxycfg-p [proxy]:[port]

where [proxy] should be replaced by IP or the name of the Proxy 

             [port] by the port.

- Option B: 

Run the command 

Proxycfg-u 

This will take the proxy settings of Internet Explorer 

3. WLInstaller run normally. 


And then, the mystery is resolved.

Good luck!

Pierluigi.-