“Error 1612. The installation source for this product is not available”

This is an error which you may receive when you try to install duplicate copies of standalone Microsoft products. The main affected applications are as follows:

• Microsoft Access
• Microsoft FrontPage
• Microsoft Publisher

The error usually occurs – but isn’t restricted to - the 2002 versions of the products. You will typically receive the error when trying to install SP1 of Microsoft Office XP. It stems from having more than one copy of the designated programs installed on the system. This sounds like a silly thing to be suffering from, but when you consider how Microsoft loves to sell its programs in bundles, it isn’t such a rare issue after all.

Thankfully, Microsoft has released a fix which deals with the clash and cleans up your system files. The fix is known as the Microsoft Windows Installer CleanUp Utility.

To download this small utility, you will need to go to the Microsoft website. There’s plenty of information and support to get you up and running, and the application is easy to use.

Once you’ve installed the utility, go to Start. Click across to Programs and locate Windows Install Clean Up.

You will see a list of all the Microsoft programs that you have installed on the operating system. Click on each of the programs, check the box and click Remove.

Each program comes with a slightly different removal procedure, but none of them should be too complicated to follow. Pay attention to the instructions and complete the uninstall process. Finally press exit to close the utility.

Assuming that you received the error while attempting to install Microsoft Office XP SP1, you should now be able to complete that particular setup. Once Office has been updated, you can safely track back and reinstall the standalone applications which were causing the 1612 error.

There are some instances where you may be receiving the 1612 error WITHOUT the mentioned programs being installed on the system. While they might not be present in the operational sense, some uninstalled software can leave behind files and registry entries which later cause problems.

This is a natural problem for PCs which have been used for months on end without a regular system clean-up. Have you noticed how the performance begins to drop, even after you’ve uninstalled all of the extra programs to leave yourself with the default configuration?

This is because most uninstall procedures leave behind traces of files, and unnecessary entries to the Windows registry. While they might not cause too many noticeable errors, it’s possible that such traces could lead to a 1612 error when you don’t actually have the Microsoft programs installed at the current time.

To get around this issue, we would suggest that you run two cleaning utilities. The first being a standard Windows cleaner, to get rid of loose odds and ends. The second being a more detailed Windows registry utility. Ridding the registry of redundant files will clear up a lot of errors and performance related issues, including – you guessed it – the 1612 error.

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