Sunday 13 November 2011

Error 1327, Invalid Drive J:

I've found this problem several times when trying to install newer software at work. In the past the school I work for had used redirected My Documents folders. Unfortunately some software tries to write to temporary user files within the My Documents or user profile under Windows 7. Removing the redirected My Documents didn't solve the problem as the registry had been altered with the redirection. This meant that the software kept failing to install with the error message "Error 1327, Invalid Drive J:".


After much searching online I found out how to fix this problem. You need to find this registry key: 



HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\User Shell Folders

And change all references to the mapped drive back to their original local folder location (usually c:\users\username\). Also check the key for Shell Folders as this stores some public document settings. Once you've done this, restart your computer and when you try to install the software again it should work properly.