Win Installer "Error: 1601 ...could not be accessed..."

Trying to install various programs and I keep getting
the "Error:-1601 The windows installer service could not
be accessed. You may be running in Safe mode or Windows
Installer may not be correctly installed. "

I'm not running in a safe mode and I AM set up as the
admin of the machine.

Been reading around, and I've tried everything I've come across...

I checked the registry for the service, and the path is
correct. I tried unregistering and registering, but that
didn't help. Downloaded and install latest SP.

Went into admin tools, and Microsoft Installer was not
started and was set to 'manual.' I changed this
to 'auto' and started the program, but after refreshing,
I discovered Microsoft Installer has shut itself down.

Renamed:
msi.dll msi.old
msiexec.exe msiexec.old
msihnd.dll msihnd.old

Didn't help...

Tried this one:
Go to Start/Run and type
regsvr32 msi.dll

then

Go to Start/Run and type

SFC /SCANNOW

No luck...

Here are some event logs:


"Event Type: Error
Event Source: MsiInstaller
Event Category: None
Event ID: 11704
Date: 10/24/2003
Time: 8:59:29 PM
User: N/A
Computer: xxxxxx
Description:
Product: ISScript -- Error 1704.An installation for
MSRedist is currently suspended. You must undo the
changes made by that installation to continue. Do you
want to undo those changes?

For more information, see Help and Support Center at
http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp. "


and

"The Windows Installer service terminated unexpectedly.
It has done this 9 time(s). "



I'm on XP, so I can reinstall 2.0 because there is not an
XP version to download.

What can I do???

I'm about to reload XP, because that's the only option I
can think of...

 

Might want to try this first
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q238413&ID=kb;en-us;Q238413