wine users - Jul 2008 - Installing MSWord SETUP.INI is missing or invalid

Hi,
I'm trying to install Microsoft Word 2002 on Wine, version 1.1.0, running on
ubuntu hardy heron, from a dvd called Microsoft Works Suite 2004 (German) that
came bundled with my computer, and I've run into some kind of endless loop.

This is what happens:
- I d-click setup.exe on the dvd, wine starts and the setup menu is shown.
- I select custom setup and click the "Word"-button.
- I get the message: "The installer has installed some files that require a
restart of the computer... the installer is going to be restarted
automatically." (translated from German; the exact wording of the
corresponding English messages will differ.)
- I accept the message (OK-button) and the installer and Wine close.
- I restart them with another d-click on setup.exe, some decompression is
quickly shown to take place, and I get this message: "Works has installed
some files that require a restart... setup will be started automatically."
OK-button, a dialog window flashes up but wine closes too fast to see what it
says.
- Another d-click on setup.exe gives me this: "An error occurred in the
last installation of Microsoft Works Suite 2004 ... would you like to know how
to perform a 'clean start'?" I say "No" and things close
again. (I've said "Yes" before, that earned me a help page on
msconfig.exe that didn't look very helpful to me.)
- The next d-click on setup.exe this time brings up the msg "The setup file
D:\MSWord\SETUP\SETUP.INI is missing or invalid. Please make sure it exists and
is accessible." (Well, it exists and I can access (=read) it. So what's
the problem?) The OK-button brings up a complaint that "The installation
can't be started. If you are installing from a medium(?) make sure it's
in the proper drive." (Has been there all the time, of course.) Hitting
"Cancel" brings up the setup menu from the start.

What's going wrong? Any help appreciated!

Thanks for reading -- Thomas

Hi, an addition to yesterday's mystery:

I find that every failed install leaves a file named "Word 2002 Setup
(nnnn).txt" in "c:\windows\temp". Here is what it says:

> 
> - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
> Launch Setup 
> 10.07.2008 10:41:19 
> Detected Windows Info:
>   PlatformId = 2
>   MajorVersion = 5
>   MinorVersion = 1
> Setup path: D:\MSWord\SETUP.EXE
> Searching for .INI file: SETUP.INI
> D:\MSWord\FILES\SETUP\SETUP.INI
> Settings file located: D:\MSWord\FILES\SETUP\SETUP.INI
> GetTempPath returned: C:\windows\temp\
> 
> NT Version 5 detected
> NT Service Pack 0x0 detected. (Minimum 0x600 required)
> Loading MSI Library....
> C:\windows\system32\MSI.DLL
> .. succeeded.
> DllGetVersion succeeded.
> Using Darwin Version 1.10.1029.0 from .ini file
> Minimum MSI version required is 1.10.1029.0
> MSI.DLL version installed now is 2.0.2600.0
> Trying to get version of 
> C:\windows\system32\msiexec.exe
> ...succeeded.
> C:\windows\system32\msiexec.exe is version 2.0.2600.2
> Reading settings file 
> D:\MSWord\FILES\SETUP\SETUP.INI
> File "...WORDRET.MSI" could not be located
> Invalid settings file contents.
> Die Einstellungsdatei D:\MSWord\FILES\SETUP\SETUP.INI fehlt oder ist
ung?ltig. Bitte vergewissern Sie sich, dass die Datei existiert und dass Zugriff
auf sie besteht.
> 
> ***** Setup exits 
> 10.07.2008 10:41:29 
> (return = -204)
So the SETUP.INI file contents is invalid, apparently because it makes something
look for a "File "...WORDRET.MSI"". I couldn't find it
either, neither on the DVD nor on the Wine "C:"- drive. There is no
file ending in .msi or .MSI at all. What's happening here? The DVD is the
original that came with my computer when I bought it new some years ago.

Any ideas? 
All the best -- Thomas

Googling "wordret.msi" turns up lots of people having this problem in
Windows, too. From what I gather, that file is specific to OEM versions of Works
Suite. This is just a guess, but the installer may be looking for a file on the
hard drive that would have been there in the original OEM Windows install.