Can't install Chrome without Internet

TBugReporter · 01 Aug 2015

I'm trying to reinstall Google Chrome on a machine that has no Internet connection (to view local HTML files), but when I ran a new copy of the "standalone" installer, all I got was a low-res drawing of a robot reaching for a screwdriver with the caption

Installation failed. The Google Chrome installer failed to start.

The really strange thing about this is, I found some older leftover installers for Google Chrome on the machine, tried them (from newest to oldest), and found that they all failed now with the same message!

What could cause an installer to fail, when the exact same installer worked without any problems back when it was originally copied to this machine? More importantly, how can I get Chrome reinstalled? Could it be the lack of an Internet connection that's causing the installer(s) to fail?

We've been fairly conscientious about manually installing updates to Windows on this machine, and I've read about something called SmartScreen which causes Windows to check *.exe files on the Internet before allowing them to run - could this new feature be what's getting in the way? And if it is, how do I remove or disable this feature, since there never will be any Internet on this machine for it to check programs against?

UPDATE: I'm getting closer to figuring this out. I've found that each time I've run the installer, it created a subfolder at "C:\Program Files (x86)\Google\Update\Offline\{random GUID}\{8A69D345-D564-463C-AFF1-A69D9E530F96}", and put another installer in that location. (This happens in the "(x86)" folder hierarchy regardless of whether the installer that was run was for the 32- or 64bit version.) Now, when I run one of these installer files, the installation completes, but it installs for the current user only (at %LocalAppData%\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe) instead of in "C:\Program Files" or "C:\Program Files (x86)". Does anyone know how to force an "all users" install?

carwiz · 01 Aug 2015

Apparently, the problem is caused by leftover versions of Chrome from a bad uninstall. We call this "droppings". :)

Try this for a fix: Fixing "Chrome Installer Failed to Start" Error in Windows

TBugReporter · 01 Aug 2015

The link you posted suggests to delete all of the "%LocalAppData%\Google" folder, but isn't that overkill? After all, that would also trash the configurations for things like Google Drive and Chromecast (if I had those on this machine), and trash all of the current user's customizations to Chrome, including any extensions installed by the user.

I'll check out the registry stuff, but I think I'll just move that folder instead of trashing it, and if I get Chrome back to where it belongs, I'll move the newly created folder at that location out and try running with the old configuration back in place.

And I'll reiterate my latest question here in case anyone missed my update to the original post: Does anyone know how to force an "all users" install of Chrome?

carwiz · 01 Aug 2015

Can't help you there. I don't use Google products for anything except YouTube and I'm loosing interest in that. :)

Alejandro85 · 02 Aug 2015

TBugReporter said:

The link you posted suggests to delete all of the "%LocalAppData%\Google" folder, but isn't that overkill? After all, that would also trash the configurations for things like Google Drive and Chromecast (if I had those on this machine), and trash all of the current user's customizations to Chrome, including any extensions installed by the user.

What if instead of deleting just copy the files to another location (say, the desktop), install, then restore the backup to its original location? That way the installer won't find the files and assume a "clean" install, while the customizations are safe.

Other than that, the next thing I would try is just borrow a computer with a working Chrome install and just copy the its program files folder onto the problematic computer. While it isn't a "formal" install procedure, reality dictates that the vast majority of programs actually work this way.

TBugReporter · 02 Aug 2015

Yes, both of those are already on my list of things to try today.

UPDATE: Just for the record, cleaning out the registry seemed to fix things. As I mentioned above, removing all the Google stuff seemed unnecessary, so I dug a little deeper and only removed the settings that seemed specific to Chrome.