InstallShield chaos

I recently tried to install a game (Battlefield 1942) which used InstallShield, but when InstallShield finished loading its files and was about to start installing the game itself, the progress bar stopped at 0% and the installation program had to be termintated from the task manager. When I killed the installation I got this message a couple of seconds later:

I've tried updating the Ikernel engine as suggested by the Electronic Arts' support but that update program also hanged and had to be closed from the task manager. I was able to run the IKernel update program in safe mode, but it didn't change anything.

I've also done a repair installation of Windows XP SP1 but the problem persists.

So, I thought I would uninstall some programs which I have installed recently to see if they caused the error. I started by trying to uninstall Norton Personal Firewall, but the uninstallation hanged (surprise).

The last thing I tried was to go to Windows Update and get the lastest updates, but when I was finished downloading all the updates, guess what... the installation hanged.

Something is seriously wrong with installation and uninstallation of applications on my system and suspect it might be InstallShield that's s crewed up, but the fact that Windows Update installtions hang tells me that maybe it's not, because Windows Update doesn't use InstallShield right?

 

OK, problem solved. I started to think about what programs I had installed lately and remembered "Norton Personal Firewall ". So I uninstalled it, and now I can install BF1942, and any other programs using "InstallShield" without any problems.