BUG: An error occurs running Windows Installer installation on Terminal Server or Remote Desktop connection

When you are installing a Windows Installer-based setup program from a Terminal Services session on Microsoft Windows 2000 Server or Windows Server 2003 or when you are using a Remote Desktop session on Windows XP Professional, you may receive one of the following error messages (where myapp.msi is the name of the .msi file that you are running).

On a system running the base version of Windows 2000, Windows Server 2003, or Windows XP Professional, you will receive error 2755: On a system running Windows 2000 Service Pack 1, you will receive error 1305:

These errors may occur if you are running from a Terminal Server session or a Remote Desktop session and the path to the installation files is a mapped drive. The Windows Installer service is running in a different session than the user and therefore has different drive mappings. The errors occur because the .msi files that are needed cannot be found.

To work around this problem, use the full universal naming convention (UNC) path on the command line or run the installation from the Terminal Server console.

Microsoft has confirmed that this is a bug in the Microsoft products that are listed at the beginning of this article.

For more information, click the following article numbers to view the articles in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: