Am trying to install WLD5.1 logged in as non-admin. During installation i get the following msg " The following files did not self-register or unregister \app data\ms123\wealth-lab developer5\metalib.dll. access is denied"
The installation completes if i hit Ok, but am unable to open WLD

Please install and activate WLD5.1 as administrator, then you may continue to use it as a normal user, given the appropriate write/modify rights (see below).

For your information, this is touched in two WL5 Wiki documents:

WL5Wiki FAQ, "I can't activate Wealth-Lab Developer 5.1"
WL5Wiki, Errors | General, "Wealth-Lab crashes on start"

I try to install WLP 64-bit and got the error message "The configuration data for this product is corrupt. Contact your support personnel". What does this mean? Thanks

1. Make sure your Windows is 64-bit and it does have .NET Framework 4.5 iunstalled.
2. The downloaded file might be corrupt. Clear the browser cache and retry download, or download using a different browser.
3. Make sure the installer is being run from the primary HDD (not from insde an archive, read-only media, whatever).

Thanks Eugene. I went through the list and all are checked off and OKs. Over the last weekend, WLP crashed and I have to uninstall it and went into the Registry Editor and remove all registries with ties to WLP. I went through the uninstall/re-install multiple times. For the first couple times, it complains there still an unhandled exception error (the SM crashed and does not started, although WLP started up), the third time, it gave me the "The configuration data for this product is corrupt...." and the installation is terminated.

Not sure this error is tied to what I did in the Registry Editor (I would think that all the registry ties to WLP that were deleted would be freshly repopulated during the re-installation step - I might be wrong?).

It still allow me to install WLP (not 64bit version), however, this installation of WLP still have the 'unhandled exception error' and SM won't start up inside WLP. Any suggestions how I can fix this without reformatting my machine would greatly appreciated. Thanks.

I'm pretty sure that the incorrect use of the Windows Registry Editor has caused this error. I really don't know what make folks uninstall/reinstall to troubleshoot problems like crashes (despite the FAQ says it for many years) but by mangling the registry entries you've turned a harmless but useless procedure into a real problem.

As the WLP registry entries may contain sensitive and undocumented keys, let me suggest you reinstall .NET Framework 4.5. If that didn't help,
perform a clean installation of Windows.

fyi,
Wealth-Lab does not use the Registry. The Extensions Manager installs a key to associate the .wle file type (and that's it), but technically the E.M. is not part of the Wealth-Lab base client. (With respect to the topic starter in 2008, the COM-based metalib.dll is no longer used as it was later replaced by a .NET version.)

Any other keys that reference Wealth-Lab are created by InstallShield, which if not manipulated properly [by InstallShield] it's sure way to corrupt an installation.

Thanks Both. I will try to reinstall .NET Framework as Eugene suggested. From what Cone said and seeing the error message is shown under "Window Installer", it seems the keys generated by InstallShield might be corrupted. Why downloading and installing new copy of WLP wouldn't help if it is the InstallShield problem? If the InstallShield is corrupted, is there other way to correct this beside those suggested by Eugene above? Thanks.

I think the best advice is to find a System Restore point created before you started messing with the Registry and restore to it.

Allow plenty of time for this operation to complete, it could take some hours.

Thanks Cone, yes it's a blunder on me. I have tried to go to as earlier restore points as possible but that did not work (I don't recall restore ever worked on my machine). I have to reformat and re-install Windows and everything else.