I was recently installing Microsoft Office 2010 on a Windows XP computer when I encountered an error. The error prevented the installation from continuing, which prevented Office 2010 from installing. Installation errors can be a pain, as some error messages may not be well documented. Luckily, Microsoft OFfice 2010, much like all version of Office since 2000, use the Windows Installer service for installation.
While the error itself doesn’t provide a whole lot of information regarding the problem, a quick search yielded the solution, which I outline below.