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Microsoft Windows includes registry-activated logging services to help diagnose Windows Installer issues. This article describes how to enable this logging service.

Open the registry with Regedt32.exe and create the following path and keys:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Installer

Reg_SZ: Logging

Value: voicewarmup

You can use this example:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREPoliciesMicrosoftwindowsInstaller]
“Logging”=”voicewarmup”

Here is and example on how you can get the MSI log to be created on the root of C:\

msiexec.exe /i MBSASetup-EN.msi /L*v c:msilog.txt

The letters in the value field can be in any order. Each letter turns on a different logging mode. Each letter’s actual function is as follows for MSI version 1.1:

v Verbose output

o Out-of-disk-space messages

i Status messages

c Initial UI parameters

e All error messages

w Non-fatal warnings

a Start up of actionsr Action-specific records

m Out-of-memory or fatal exit information

u User requests

p Terminal properties

+ Append to existing file

! Flush each line to the log

“*” - Wildcard, log all information except for the v option. To include the v option, specify “/l*v“.

Once activated, the log files that are generated may be found in your %TEMP% directory.