Text2Go Blog

Problems upgrading from Winzip 11.1 to 11.2

It should have been easy (famous last words). No uninstall required. Just install over the top and you’re done.

Unfortunately I hit problems immediately. A cryptic error message appeared along the lines of not having permission to access the following key.

1402 HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\WinZip\DefaultIcon

This doesn’t make any sense. I’m running XP with full admin rights.

This one error causes the entire installation to abort.

So I thought I’d try removing Winzip 11.1 first. Same error.

However now I’m even worse off. Winzip 11.1 has now been partially removed, so I can no longer access it.

The solution.

Run Regedit.exe (Start->Run and type regedit.exe)  and manually remove the entire parent key

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\WinZip

Run the uninstall again.

This time it comes up with the same error but for a different registry key

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\WinZip.JobFile\DefaultIcon

So I removed that key and tried again.

To cut a long story short, by repeatedly running the uninstall and then manually deleting each key that it complained about (approx. 5 or 6), I was able to get the uninstallation of 11.1 to complete.

I then ran the 11.2 installation which completed without errors.

It could have been much worse. I just hope every Winzip user doesn’t run into this problem or there are going to be a lot of frustrated people out there.