Every time I run Excel 2010, Windows Installer tries to configure it

Question

Recently, after a pushed update from Microsoft (using Windows 10 and Office 2010), I began having a problem. Every time I ran Excel I would get this message:

A few moments later, it changed to this:

and then:

Of course, I couldn't tell it where to find the Microsoft Office Single Image 2010 file it sought (I looked everywhere using SwiftSearch), so I would cancel, get another error message and then it would start all over again... (argh)

I quickly learned to hit Cancel as soon as the first message appeared and a few moments later I could use Excel. But it was an ongoing annoyance that wouldn't go away. Searching the web turned up lots of things that did not work, including running EXCEL.EXE directly. Finally, today, I figured out the source of the problem and resolved it. See my answer below...

Answer 1

Looking in the Event Viewer log, I found that every time Excel started there was a series of entries and the first one was always this:

Detection of product '{90140000-003D-0000-1000-0000000FF1CE}', feature 'ProductNonBootFiles', component '{B3D474BE-E3A6-49C8-B1DA-68D117BD8DC7}' failed. The resource 'C:\WINDOWS\Fonts\MEIRYO.TTC' does not exist.

A web search turned up this page showing MEIRYO is a Microsoft font for CJK languages (which I don't actually use or need...). That page notes it is supplied with Office 2010 (among others).

I used SwiftSearch and discovered that the font file in question was present on my computer in this location:

C:\Windows\Installer\$PatchCache$\Managed\00004119B30000000100000000F01FEC\14.0.4763

I went there and found it and also MEIRYOB.TTC. Did right-click and 'Install' on both of them.

Restarted Excel & the problem is gone!

My estimation is that Microsoft either created a dependency on that font for Excel (without ensuring it is installed) or somehow uninstalled it during one of the upgrades.

My advice: If you encounter this problem, start at the event log.

1. Right click on "Computer" on your desktop / start menu and hit "Manage".
2. Under "System Tools", expand "Event Viewer", "Windows Logs", and select "Application".
3. On the right, click "Filter Current Log"
4. In the new dialog, for the "Event sources" drop down list, select "MsiInstaller" & click "OK"

That will filter the log to all Windows installer related actions. Click "Find..." on the right to search for "Product: Microsoft Office Single Image 2010 -- Configuration failed."

Go back to the beginning of that sequence of MsiInstaller messages and see what triggered it. It may be the same as my case or perhaps you'll find something different. Good luck.