Why can’t the IIS installer can’t copy staxmem.dll despite it being in the folder specified?

Question

I'm running Microsoft Web Platform Installer and it's trying to install IIS5.1. Unfortunately I've got the following error:

Setup cannot copy the file staxmem.dll

Ensure that the location specified below is correct, or change it and insert 'Windows XP Proffessional Service Pack 3 CD' in the drive you specify.

c:\windows\ServicePackFiles\i386

Now I downloaded the service pack through Windows Update so I don't have the CD. I did a search via Google and came up with this support page. I followed the first set of instructions and there wasn't anything wrong with the database, so I proceeded to step 2. Unfortunately this again requires the Service Pack CD.

A search of the hard-drive has shown that the file is in the directory specified.

So how do I get the installation to proceed?

Is it because the file already exists at the target location and is in use? If so that would imply that IIS is already installed on the machine. So in that case the question becomes - why is the Web Platform Installer trying to install something that's already installed?

Copied from ServerFault rather than migrated

Answer 1

That support page is misleading. When it says if the tool returns the message:

"This operation may find that this database is corrupt"

It means does the output contains that text somewhere? Not is that the only output. The output will still look mostly like the second sample, but with the line above somewhere in the output. Even if the tool finds possible corruption, it will still end the output saying "Integrity Check Successful".

This had me banging my head against a wall for ages until I noticed the important line about half way through the output.

Every time I've come across this issue so far, it has been fixed by repairing the group policy file as the support article suggests.

Answer 2

KB894351 still works, using esentutl to check and fix secedit.sdb.

This allowed me to add IIS 7.5 to Windows XP Media Center Edition (XP Pro superset) SP3.